747 Compliance Made Easy & AI in Action

[Speaker 2]
Hello friends, Uncle Mark here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast coming at you live from Orlando, Florida. We are at IT Nation Connect continuing with day two at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort and had another break, got my lunch. We are good to go for the rest of the day and we are presented by Thread, winner of last year's Pitch It competition and we are coming to you live courtesy of Rhythms, powered by their portable internet in a box.

So I have with me Vin Pham from SecureFrame and we didn't get a lot of chance to prep so this is going to be fun. So Vin. It's the best way to do it, right?

It is, it is. So thank you for stopping by and hanging out and I guess for the most part, I don't know how many of my listeners have ever heard SecureFrame so let's start with the most obvious question. Who is SecureFrame?

What do you do?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, so first of all, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be talking to you and I've been watching the live streams along with everyone else. So SecureFrame is a compliance automation platform.

Essentially we take what used to be a very archaic legacy and costly process to help companies and partners achieve compliance and we provide a software platform that helps accelerate that, make it more efficient and turn it into a revenue generator for partners. So we take that process by integrating a partner's tech stack into our platform, assessing against a particular framework that they might be looking to adhere to and then furnishing results whether or not, you know, how they're tracking to that framework and providing the automation we need.

[Speaker 2]
Alright. So some of the other platforms that I've talked with, some of them have agents involved, some of them tie into an RMM and they just, you know, assess what's in there. How does SecureFrame do that?

[Speaker 3]
So we have direct integrations with most cloud hosted services and products. We have a lightweight agent of ourselves that can go down on a device and monitor for certain assets and attributes for that asset. We don't have like write control or anything like that, as heavy as an RMM might, but we are looking to integrate with some of the bigger RMM vendors out there also to augment the MSP community and how they look at devices.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. And I know that compliance is big right now, cybersecurity is big right now. Yeah.

So how is it then, you know, talking to MSPs, getting them to onboard and stuff like that? Is it an easy conversation? There's still a lot of education that has to be done?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. There's, it depends, right? It depends on the service partner's journey and their maturation in the process.

We have many partners come to us with a very concrete idea of what they're looking for from a tool and how to build compliance as a service into their offering. We have other service partners that are earlier on in the journey and looking for advice and consulting of how to go about doing that. So it spans a spectrum, but what I'd say is we launched our partner program in June of this year, and we've had hundreds of partners sign up to our partner program because it's that compelling and it's that top of mind with all the partners in the space right now.

So it's been great.

[Speaker 2]
All right. So if you launched the partner program in June, what were you doing before?

[Speaker 3]
Before that, we had a way or a vehicle for partners to engage with us, but we didn't have the program and the unlocks, the rewards, the support that was needed for, again, to your point, partners who are earlier on in the journey, build it into their services offering and launch it out to their customers. So now this partner program is very focused on enablement, training, and then all the way up until deal support and deployment support. We try to encapsulate the entire flywheel or the entire motion of a service partner.

[Speaker 2]
Is there a cost to the program? Is there discounts to the program? I mean, the incentives that a partner may look at is, okay, what's in it for me?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. Where do I start? So we've done, prior to launching the program, we did a lot of listening, right?

And I've worked with the service provider community for about 10 years now. Our VP of general is beyond that. And what we do understand from service partners are, you know, they need to understand the technology, embrace it, and adopt it before they can go necessarily deploy it en masse to their customers.

So the way we've built our partner program is similar to what MSPs have asked for, which is no minimums or commitments. We offer NFR licenses for our partners to deploy SecureFrame internally and take it for a run. Eat your own dog food, I think is the term that everyone keeps using.

It's probably antiquated now. And then in terms of the rewards and pricing, yes, partners get a preferred pricing model with us based on the deployments that they have. And we offer co-sell support to them also.

[Speaker 2]
Right. So, I mean, I know the value of looking at a compliance portal, making sure everything's set with our clients and stuff. But in terms of that helping us help our customers in terms of scale, in terms of, you know, going to market faster and stuff like that, how is SecureFrame structured in helping us do that faster, better?

[Speaker 3]
The one thing I do want to highlight that is a huge lever to pull in the services community right now is we actually just launched the free GAFA system, which is, for lightly putting it, it introduces the conversation between a service partner and their customers around why framework adherence is necessary, where that customer may be falling short of framework adherence, and then also what are the implications, right? The service providers can brand that as their own and bring it to their customers and initiate the conversation.

And then the way that we've structured our teams and how we support our MSPs after that fact is that we have account executives that will co-sell alongside of an MSP on their first couple of opportunities so that they can see how SecureFrame sells SecureFrame. And then also partner support, SE support, at any given time in a project with SecureFrame, you're going to be working with about four resources on our side. So we've made a pretty heavy investment into the channel and we understand what it takes to be successful.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Let me go back because I should have asked this earlier, but when you talked about the GAFA assessment, but then really when you look at having your customers go up against a framework. Yeah.

I know that a lot of times some of the platforms you pick a framework and you only go against that one framework. If you've got to go and do a second framework, you'd have to go back and redo it. Is there a way to do multiple frameworks at the same time?

[Speaker 3]
Absolutely. Okay. And so the way that we've built our platform, which I believe is a core strength of ours, the tests underneath of a given framework can map to other frameworks.

Okay. So not only can you go for multiple frameworks at a given time, but by completing one framework, you will be able to understand what your progress is to a different framework that you may not have visibility to today, but in the future and assess where you are against that framework. So yes, we have our mapping goes across frameworks or test controls, et cetera.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Is there a typical type of MSP, whether it's size, whether it's focus, target market, that sort of thing that lends itself better to partnering with SecureFrame?

[Speaker 3]
I think it spans the gamut and only because compliance today seems to be spanning the gamut as well, right? It depends on region. It depends on vertical.

So we fit the bill for most and many MSPs. I'd say if you've been plugged into the conference enough, this go around, CMMC seems to be the hottest topic that everyone's talking about.

[Speaker 2]
I think they're talking about it, but not everybody has to deal with CMMC, but we have to deal with NIST. We have to deal with the other stuff.

[Speaker 3]
And then if you cross the pond, you start talking about GDPR, cyber essentials, and then even essentially in Australia, right? So again, it's hard to categorize which MSPs are relevant to this because compliance is relevant across all the MSPs based on who they service.

[Speaker 2]
So what I've been doing with my customers is a lot of times they don't fall into one or the other, but I try to do a generalization of, look, here's the best practices from all these frameworks we need to do. Most of them can fall under NIST 800-171 or whatever. Is there something that you guys are seeing or you're hearing from MSPs as to a best practice scenario that would encompass most MSPs as opposed to ones that are fully CMMC?

[Speaker 3]
So one of the things that we've done here at the very launch of our program, because we heard this from MSPs as well, is baseline security posture and hygiene is absolutely critical. And to get that in place requires a lightweight framework that you can demonstrate that you're doing the applicable steps against. That time and time again had been CIS.

So the reason why we've incorporated that in our partner program by way of an NFR license internally for any MSP that signs up for us gets free CIS IG1 framework so that you can proudly demonstrate that you are practicing the basic security hygiene standards and care about security posture. And then we also give to our MSPs what we call a trust page where you can display real-time monitoring of your tracking and adherence to CIS on the website.

[Speaker 2]
All right. Now, you say real-time. Is it real-time as in, I can check my client today and then recheck them tomorrow?

Yes.

[Speaker 3]
It's continuous monitoring. Continuous? Okay.

So there's this theme in the industry where compliance is like a rubber stamp at a point in time that you're adherent to a framework and you get that rubber stamp and you move on.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. I mean, there's people that have said, look, this is a snapshot in time.

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
So I can't guarantee what this will result at tomorrow, but the fact that you're doing continuous means that I can at least go back and check and I don't have to wait 30 days for my next report.

[Speaker 3]
Yes. And most importantly, because we're integrating directly into your systems in your cloud stack or your technology stack, as you're making configuration changes to that stack, we can show you in real-time because of continuous monitoring what changes are causing you to fall more into compliance or out of compliance, depending on what you're doing.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. And how much of your services are hybrid, meaning a lot of people are in the cloud, a lot of us are still terrestrial server-based and stuff. How does it work across the local LAN and the cloud?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. So we are, I would say that we were built, our platform was built in the cloud, so we natively have our strengths in cloud-to-cloud connections. But that being said, as I mentioned before, we have a lightweight agent on our side for endpoint.

And then also, forging vendor alliances, we know how tightly knit this community is in the service provider community. So integrating with the RMMs, integrating with the other vendors that are out there will help us bridge the full tech stack.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. All right. I think I've asked all my questions.

Is there anything that you guys have in terms of, you know, you're here at IT Nation, a lot of companies are announcing, you know, products, sponsorships, services, anything like that. Anything new with you guys?

[Speaker 3]
I would say for us, it's the recent release of our gap assessment has gotten major adoption from partners as a meaningful conversation starter with their customers. And it's completely free as part of our program. In fact, our program is completely free.

So secureframe.com slash partners is the way to go if you want to learn anything more. But yeah, other than that, just enjoying Orlando and enjoying another year at IT Nation. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
You say enjoying Orlando as if you're not from here.

[Speaker 3]
Yes. I'm from Austin, Texas.

[Speaker 2]
But the weather's... Okay. It's not that different.

[Speaker 3]
You just don't have the humidity like we have. That's the first thing I noticed when I got off the plane. The humidity was like thick.

You could walk through it.

[Speaker 2]
But yeah. Did you have other clothing that would allow you to enjoy?

[Speaker 3]
I did. And I still do. So this isn't the outfit for the next three days.

But yeah. It's going to be... And from what I've heard at night, it cools down and it gets pretty nice.

[Speaker 2]
It sort of cools down. Were you at the block party last night? I didn't make it to the block party last night.

That you would have known because a lot of people were still sweating.

[Speaker 3]
It pains my heart we missed the performances or I missed the performances. And yeah.

[Speaker 2]
You wanted to be on stage dancing with it, didn't you? Yeah. Putting it lightly, yeah.

[Speaker 3]
I would have relished the moment.

[Speaker 2]
All right. Well, you'll get a chance. There's another party.

Yes. Yeah. Tonight?

Not as stage dance worthy, I don't think.

[Speaker 3]
Depends who's at the party though, right? You can make anything at a dance party if you want to. That's true.

[Speaker 2]
That's true. We've got a member of the audience. Anything to contribute?

The head feverously shakes. No. Yeah, we're live.

We're looking at you. Awkward. Awkward.

That's what the show does. All right. Well, Vin, thank you for stopping by.

And hope you enjoy the rest of your time. What the heck is that? Finance and accounting?

Let me bring up the… Let's see if the second camera… Oh, it's a sign.

Okay. I love it. I thought it was like a big old fish hook.

[Speaker 3]
See, that wouldn't even be surprising at IT Nation, right? That would be another day here.

[Speaker 2]
That's just me being observant when I should be focusing on my guests. All right. Well, enjoy your time here and hope you get to visit the sites.

Universal tonight, I believe. Yeah. And have your other outfit.

And secureframe.com. Yes.

[Speaker 3]
And thanks for having me.

[Speaker 2]
Thanks for coming in. Thanks for being persistent and trying to get on the show. Not you, but whoever was emailing on your behalf.

Whatever. We're a tenacious group. You are.

You are. That's going to do it, folks. Vin, Sam, Secureframe, check them out and make sure you get compliant.

That's going to do it. I'm going to take a break here. We'll be back with more.

We'll see you soon. Mahalo. Hello, friends.

Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast. And we are streaming live from IT Nation in Orlando, Florida. We are in day two of IT Nation.

And this show is presented by Thread, last year's Pitch It winner. And we are streaming Compliments of Rhythms Internet in a Box. And I have a guest with me from a company you've heard before on the show, PIA.

But a new guest, James Allen, Vice President of Sales, is joining me. James, how are you?

[Speaker 1]
I'm doing great, Uncle Marv. Thanks for having us.

[Speaker 2]
Thanks for stopping by. So, let me first ask, as we watch lunch in front of us and snack time and everything, how are you enjoying IT Nation?

[Speaker 1]
Look, this time of year is both exciting and exhausting.

[Speaker 2]
True, true.

[Speaker 1]
I look forward to it. It's marked on the calendar a year in advance because it's a place where, you know, something special happens every year. Like the community comes together, new ideas, there's an electric energy about.

We're having great conversations with friends and meeting new friends as well, like yourself. So, it's a great time of year.

[Speaker 2]
All right. Now, I know that you're not originally from here, even though you're living in Tampa. How are you enjoying Orlando?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, so, you're right. You probably got that from the accent. Not from around these parts.

So, I'm from Australia originally, but I've been living out in Tampa, Florida for the last couple of years now. It's two years actually this month. And so, I've been to Orlando a few times.

You know, we've got three young kids. So, the proximity…

[Speaker 2]
You've already seen the sights.

[Speaker 1]
Right, right, right. So, yeah, we've come up and experienced Orlando a few times. You know, obviously, with conferences that are on here, but also for some family fun time as well.

So, I like it. It's great up here in Orlando.

[Speaker 2]
Right. So, a lot of people from out of town are bringing the family. You probably didn't have to this time, did you?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So, you're right. The kids are at school.

We initially had them. They were going to come up for a few days, but because of all the school that's been cancelled down here in Florida… Yeah.

So, that wasn't really an option. So, they came up on the Sunday night, and we had a bit of a day by the pool out here. And Sunday night, they wanted some room service.

And then my wife, Katie, she got up at 6 o'clock in the morning on Monday and drove them out to school, back to Tampa.

[Speaker 2]
They must have hated that, but it is what it is, right?

[Speaker 1]
It is what it is. Right. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
All right. So, you've been with PIA a couple of years now, and I've had the privilege of talking to Coach and Brut when they were with you guys. And they've moved on, and good luck to them where they are.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 2]
But things still have to go on for PIA. So, how have things been for the last few months?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, great question. So, what's been really exciting over the last 12 months is, early this year, we knew we needed to get some leadership here in the States. So, we put it out to market.

We were looking for a U.S.-based CEO. And we were extremely fortunate to have Joe A. Todd come and join us in January of this year.

So, as you know, we've had some great technology and great vision in this space. But what Joe A. has allowed us to do is really get focused, get laser-focused on what's our vision, what's our mission, and being able to take what was already a great product and a great idea and make it something special.

So, he's been able to set the vision and the goal for us to take it from here to a whole other level. So, that's been the exciting journey that we've been on over the last 6 to 12 months.

[Speaker 2]
All right. So, of course, a lot of people that I've been talking with are talking about AI, that they've either introduced it into their product, they've enhanced it. Of course, AI has been a part of PIA from the very beginning.

So, let me ask you your thoughts on how the trends with AI are coming along in our space.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's a great question, Mark. So, you saw Manny talk about it last night at the keynote. It's here.

It's making an impact. It's like cybersecurity was for the industry a few years back. It's going to take us to that next level, that next generation of MSP.

So, it's certainly not going away. But I think where we need to be focused on is really getting specific around the business case, the use cases for it. There's a lot of uncertainty.

Is it going to take jobs? Is it going to have security issues? So, what I've seen is these questions still need to be answered for us as an MSP community.

There's still a lot of questions that we need to be answering. And our CTO, Aaron Hadibazi, he's over here at the moment from Australia. He's the founding developer that wrote the code basically for PIA.

And he's giving a presentation tomorrow morning here in Orlando. And the title of it is, I gave ChatGPT 50,000 tickets and this is the result. Interesting.

It's spicy, right? Yes. So, it's just going to highlight that, yes, there's some fantastic technology out there.

There's some great tools. And they are going to empower this industry. But we really need to be focused on the use case.

So, you touched on it earlier. We've had AI embedded into our platform since the very beginning. Aaron was playing around with this stuff before ChatGPT made it cool.

He and his team have developed a small language model, not a large language model. So, a small contained language model that he's trained up with over a million tickets of MSP data. So, it's very, very accurate.

It's very, very specific on MSP ticket use cases. So, that's the sort of stuff that we're trying to highlight and educate the market on is when we're looking out there, get those questions answered to knock down those fears and uncertainty. But make sure the use case of what you're trying to implement the AI for is really going to be impactful for your business.

[Speaker 2]
Right. Let me sidetrack a little bit because I want to ask this question because you're from Australia and have a sense of how MSPs work over there. How is it different with the U.S. in the ways that we view what we do as MSPs and the way AI is viewed in both countries?

[Speaker 1]
I thought you were going to ask me about spiders, Marv. Nah, I've seen Crocodile Dundee. No, it's a good question.

So, look, typically in Australia, we're usually about three to five years behind what's happening over here in the States. And in the MSP space, we're definitely seeing that lagging over the last 10 years. That's been true.

But on the flip side, what you're also seeing is this change in technology adoption. I get a real sense that Australia, New Zealand, we're starting to be early adopters of this technology over in that part of the world. And then when we bring it over here to the States, like, wow, you guys have been doing this for years over there in Australia.

Like, that's crazy stuff. So I think from a business process and assistance side of things, we're sort of following America in that sense. But from the innovation piece, we're seeing some really innovative technology coming out of that part of the world and the adoption of it.

[Speaker 2]
Well, that's why I asked, because it almost seems as though it was there before, even though you may lag behind in other areas. That wasn't it.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Well, it's a great observation, because when we were trying to solve for the challenge at our MSP, we actually looked around markets to try and find something to help. Because most MSPs you talk to, they don't want to build this sort of stuff.

They'd rather take something that's off the shelf, ready to go and plug it in. So we spent time looking for things out there that would solve for this problem. And the problem that we had was, Manny talked about it last night here on stage.

It was that service desk is the biggest cost center of the business. How do you make it more scalable, more consistent, and more efficient and profitable? I ran sales and growth for that MSP, and the formula for us was every 200 to 300 endpoints we grew in new logos and clients, we had to throw bodies at the desk.

So as our top line revenue increased, that meant our expenses cracked in the same linear fashion. So our EBITDA would just flatline. So we knew very early in our journey as an MSP, if we were going to solve for our profitability increasing, we needed to tackle that problem.

So like I said, there wasn't anything in the market, so we went and built it ourselves. And like I said, we trained up that model. We looked for ways to automate and create efficiencies there.

And now, fast forward a couple of years on, and here we are. We're servicing hundreds of partners around the world and getting phenomenal results. I was on stage a couple of weeks ago with one of our partners, Todd Clark at Denali Tech, at a Robin Robbins event.

And he shared with the community the impact that he has had to the business. Endpoint per tech ratio was one that we measured quite often at our business. We were True Methods, MSP, Gary Pekers metrics.

So endpoint per tech was a big number for us to follow. So Todd shared the impact that it's had on his business. He's gone from 190 endpoints per tech as a ratio, and he had a goal of getting to 300 this year.

He broke through that, and he's now at 357 endpoints per tech.

[Speaker 2]
That's high.

[Speaker 1]
That's very high, right? But it's not the highest that we've got in our partner base, but it's significant, and he's going to keep growing. And the best thing from a business owner's perspective is the impact to the EBITDA, right?

Because it directly correlates to that profitability of your company. And he shared to the community that it's gone from 13%, now it's up to 24. Nice.

He literally said to me, I said, how does that make you feel as a business owner? And he said he's pinching himself too, which I can completely understand. Coming from a business background, I know the impact that that has on not only the business, but the business owner.

That's life-changing. That's transformative. So I love that.

I get passionate about that when I'm hearing those sorts of stories.

[Speaker 2]
So you say Service Desk is one of the big cost centers. I had Peter Kajawa on the show yesterday, and he was talking about their compensation report, and wage inflation is what they dubbed as the biggest suck out of our profits, which technically is about the same thing. If you're talking, you know, you've got to throw a check on the Service Desk, that's money you've got to pay in person.

[Speaker 1]
Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, we're not saying, you know, you put out technology and fire half your staff.

We're not saying that, obviously. What we are saying, though, is throw your hands around the people that you've got in the business, protect them, pay them fairly, and then grow that business and not have to put anyone else on. You know, I had a great conversation with Ramstack over in the UK, a decent-sized MSP, and they shared their story to a boardroom that I presented at a couple of weeks ago, and it went on since about February this year, and he shared that, Peter Took, shared that he hasn't had to backfill anyone that's left the help desk in the last six months.

So, if you think of an average MSP, you know, their turnover rate for staff, we all know it. If someone walks out of that help desk the very next day, what are you doing? You're picking up the phone to put another bum on that seat, right?

Yes. You've got a formula, whether it's 5, 10, 25, if that goes down one, you need to put another bum on the seat because you need that many people to service this many tickets from this many clients, and that's our formula. That's how we've always operated.

Well, that's the sort of mentality that I'm trying to break, that we're trying to break here at Clear. We don't have to do things the same way anymore. So, I want you to go and grow that business and not keep throwing bodies at the problem or, you know, like your friend was saying, throw more money at the problem, more expenses.

[Speaker 2]
I like to look at it as a way of making our people more efficient so that all of the stuff that's easy is solved in an easy way, and the problems that you need to spend time on that are more complex, require more skill, that's where they can focus their time. You don't want to engineer, focus on password resets and that sort of stuff.

[Speaker 1]
Marv, you nailed it. So, it's funny. I was here yesterday at the booth, and one of our newer partners, Sean from Tag, he had Marissa come to the booth, and they've just started.

And Marissa is an office admin, right? Not technical at all, but she's getting involved with the PR rollout because she knows where the documentation is, she knows how to do the configuration, and she said to me, she goes, I did my first password reset the other day, and I was like, what do you mean? She goes, yeah, well, PR popped up, and I tested it, I pushed the button, and PR went and did the work.

And I said, have you ever done any tickets before? And she laughed at me. She goes, of course not.

I'm not allowed to get into any of the client environments. But here we have non-technical resources, and I'm getting told this time and time again, and being able to do these complex tasks because of the technology that we've got to empower them. And I've got dispatchers from partners that do all the password resets.

I've got level zeros taking phone calls and just routing tickets. They're closing out tickets. And we're not trying to take those jobs, but what you said is exactly right.

We're giving more time back to those resources to go and do the more fulfilling things that they went to college and university to do. I was talking to John out at CMIT the other day, and they had a new user onboarding process that took two and a half hours, took two resources, two and a half hours, one to do the initial setup and another resource to come and check it. Because it's a very important ticket.

If you mess it up, you're going to get the phone calls, like, hey, why is his first name, last name around the wrong way or whatever? And it's painful to get those ones wrong. So they've got two resources doing it.

Now, after PR, one resource, 30 to 45 minutes. So I said, well, what have you done with all that time? Like, have you had to let anyone go?

He said, absolutely not. He goes, I've got a ton of projects in my backlog that I'm now pumping out and getting done. So again, as a business owner, what have you just done there?

You've brought forward cash flow into your business to become more profitable. And to your point, you've got those techs now not grinding out user onboardings. They're going and doing the fun stuff that they want to do.

[Speaker 2]
Another way to look at it is, yeah, all those tickets that are eating up time on the front end, that back end where people really should be spending their time on their QBR, TBR, their VCIO stuff. Proactive. That's where they can now start to actually look ahead with their customers and say, okay, we're dealing with today.

That's all taken care of. What do we need to worry about tomorrow? Where do you want to go as a company?

How can we help you get there? That's where we really want to be.

[Speaker 1]
You just nailed it. And what I like to say is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because you're saving time by the technology automating these tickets, we give more time to those techs to go and clean up the environment, to stop the noise, reduce the noise, which means less tickets are coming into the desk.

But the ones that are coming in, they're now being automated. So we're getting more time. So it becomes that self-fulfilling prophecy, which is when you can start to elevate your endpoint per tech ratio up to over 400 endpoints per tech.

You can service more endpoints because you got rid of all the noise, because of all the remediation work, the documentation work that you know you needed to do, but you haven't got done because you just don't have the time. Absolutely.

[Speaker 2]
Well, James, this has been fascinating. Let me ask the last question and see if you do have an answer. 2024 is coming to a close as we look forward to 2025.

Anything on the roadmap that sticks out that you want to kind of get out there for us?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, awesome. Look, 2024 has been an amazing year from a product perspective in terms of our advancements. We're just about to launch our platform release number 17.

And in it, our development and automation team has been really doubling down these last six months on our AI triage capabilities and our smart forms or self-service capabilities. So what you're going to see in our next release is effectively the ability for a ticket to be submitted by an end user, the AI and machine learning, read it on the way in, categorize it with up to 60 different categories in an MSP and stamp it correctly, type, subtype an item, for example. And if we don't have one of those 60 categories covered, we actually give the MSP the ability to train up the model and add categories to look out for and route for, and then dispatch those to the right resources or boards and then take it a step further and actually recognize what that ticket is.

And if it's something that can be done by a self-serve smart form, Pia's going to go and send that to the end user. So say, you know, Marv submits a ticket for a new user. Pia understands all this, categorizes it, stamps it, sends Marv an email and says, hey, it looks like you can submit this via our smart form capability and jump the queue, you know, get it done faster.

So you'll fill it in. And because of that integration into your platform, your environment, Pia's populating all the information and doing the ticket before it even hits the help desk now. Nice.

So we're taking efficiency to a whole other level. Like in terms of our mission, it's still inch wide, mile deep on that help desk because there's so much work we can do and so much value that we can add to the MSP there.

[Speaker 2]
That's fantastic. So that's going to be released Q1, maybe?

[Speaker 1]
No, that's going to be released next week.

[Speaker 2]
Next week. Nice. That's coming now.

Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Like the future is today, Marv. Like we're here. Our partners are doing this stuff today.

[Speaker 2]
Well, sweet. I'm sure a lot of people will be very happy when that's there and look forward to implementing that. And I look forward to seeing what else you guys coming down the road.

And it was nice to meet you and get a new face for Pia.

[Speaker 1]
Uncle Marv, it's been a pleasure. And thanks to all the listeners out there. It's been great.

[Speaker 2]
Well, there you go, folks. James Allen, VP of Sales at Pia. I was going to say in finance.

I was going to add another role to you.

[Speaker 1]
Awesome.

[Speaker 2]
I think we've got a couple more interviews, folks, coming here from IT Nation. We'll keep rolling on. We'll see you later.

Holla!