Every week, I talk with partners who are simultaneously excited and terrified about AI. They see the opportunity; their SMB clients desperately need help navigating this shift. But they also see the chaos: New models, new capabilities, new competitors are appearing overnight.
The feeling is universal: Partners know this is a massive opportunity, but the ground keeps shifting beneath their feet.
That’s exactly why we launched Pax8 Labs.
The Market Reality We Can’t Ignore
The AI landscape isn’t just evolving, it’s exploding in unpredictable directions. Every month brings capabilities nobody predicted. Models that suddenly understand images, code or complex reasoning — breakthroughs that made yesterday impossible are now today’s baseline.
This unpredictability creates paralysis across the economy. Enterprises freeze hiring. SMBs delay decisions. MSPs struggle to price services that might be 10x cheaper in six months.
Waiting for stability isn’t a strategy. Because stability isn’t coming.
Building the Market, Not Just Products
Pax8 Labs has a dual mission: Solve today’s technical challenges while helping define how the entire agent economy actually works.
Think about: The SaaS revolution that took years to settle on seat-based pricing as its standard. That model worked because it aligned with budgets, scaled predictably and was simple to understand. But AI agents don’t need seats. One agent can serve one user or ten thousand equally well.
So, what’s the unit of value in the agent economy? That’s what Pax8 Labs is discovering through real-world partner experiments:
- Is it per-outcome pricing where partners get paid only when AI delivers results?
- Is it capability-based models where SMBs pay for what agents can do, not how often they do it?
- Is it something entirely new that no one has invented yet?
This isn’t academic. The pricing model that wins will determine who profits from the AI revolution. And we’re making sure it’s a model where partners, not just hyper-scalers, can build sustainable businesses.
The Economic Reality Nobody’s Talking About
Here’s what keeps partners up at night: AI is deflationary. What costs $1,000 to deliver today might cost $100 in six months. A service requiring specialized expertise now could be a one-click automation by year-end.
This isn’t just about pricing; it’s about entire business models. How do you build a sustainable practice when the floor keeps dropping out from under your costs? How do you invest in capabilities that might be commoditized before you recoup the investment?
The Pax8 Labs team is exploring this head-on with partners. We’re testing models that work even as costs plummet. Outcome-based pricing that captures value regardless of underlying costs, capability bundles that price on business impact, not only compute time, but also hybrid models we haven’t even named yet.
Why Pax8, Why Now
Here’s what we bring that no one else can: Deep channel DNA combined with Marketplace scale is the Pax8 secret sauce. We understand partner economics because we’ve built our entire business on them. We know how MSPs make money, what margins they need and how they package solutions specifically for SMBs.
Hyperscalers are building powerful AI tools, but they don’t always understand the channel’s economics, particularly in the SMB market. AI startups are creating innovative solutions, but they can’t reach millions of SMBs. Pax8 sits at the intersection, and we speak both languages and have relationships on all sides.
Pax8 Labs is where we translate AI innovation into channel opportunity. We’re not just connecting partners to AI tools; we’re building the economic and operational infrastructure that makes AI profitable for the channel.
Moving at Market Speed
Traditional product development is too slow for AI. By the time you complete a typical roadmap, the entire landscape has changed.
Pax8 Labs operates on different principles. We prototype with partners in real-time. We test economic models in live environments. When partners identify a barrier to AI adoption, we explore solutions immediately, not in next year’s roadmap.
This agility isn’t about being trendy. It’s about ensuring our partners can capture opportunities while they exist.
Let’s Figure This Out Together
We don’t have all the answers yet, but we’re committed to finding them more quickly by working directly with partners who are grappling with these same questions.
If you’re trying to deliver AI profitably and hitting walls, let’s talk. If you’re worried about the deflationary spiral, you’re not alone. If you have ideas about what could work, we want to hear them.
Connect with your channel account manager to explore AI solutions available today and discuss what we’re building for tomorrow. Join our early partner discussions. Share what’s breaking and what’s working.
The AI economy is being built right now, in real-time, by partners brave enough to experiment. The models they validate today will become the industry standards tomorrow. The approaches we prove together will become the playbook everyone else follows.
We’re building out in the open, with our partners. Come build with us.
