Tomorrow, Thrive, which makes modern workforce solutions, and also does outsourcing for cybersecurity, cloud, and traditional managed services, is releasing its NextGen platform. It lets customers increase business efficiencies through AI, standardization, scalability, and automation, delivering oversized technology returns on investment (ROI).
“Most managed services do up to three things – provide traditional AI support, provide security services, and provide cloud services,” said Michael Gray, Chief Technology Officer at Thrive. “Now there is a fourth service, Managed AI Services.”
Managed AI Services is a new offering that provides mid-market businesses with a dedicated team of experts to help build their AI strategy and implement it at scale, including secure private GenAI Services coupled with data and AI Assessment tools.
“On the consumer side it is pretty simple, with ChatGPT being the main consumer product,” Gray said. “It is more complex on the business side, however. Many business users use it, but it is not very controlled. Many people use it at their job in an undocumented manner. People at places like MIT say that this needs to be regularly done, because this is one of the fastest growing websites in history.”
The business side can be problematic.
“Many people use the free version, which can be very dangerous since it’s not controlled,” Gray noted. “It can be used to upload sensitive information.”
Another sensitive issue is that while IT leaders are highly concerned about utilizing AI in business operations, most don’t know where to start or how to keep it secure. According to Gartner, more than 60% of CIOs say AI is part of their innovation plan, yet fewer than half feel the organization can manage its risks.
‘It’s a lot of work – connecting technology to business to help them drive value,” Gray said. “It really defines your business case and makes sure you get as much value as possible.”
To support these businesses, Thrive’s Managed AI services offer tailored solutions for every stage of AI adoption. Through a thoughtful, customer-first process, Thrive experts will help clients understand their data-readiness for AI, define goals, create clear AI use cases and identify the solutions and processes needed to meet those goals, as well as implement, manage and maintain AI systems going forward.
“We offer tailored solutions for every stage of AI adoption,” Gray said. “We have been working on this for quite some time – almost two years. We’ve also been building our team internally – both building our team and our product. As a result, we could have done this nine months ago.”
Gray said that Thrive has combined on this for over 20 years, with Wednesday being the launch.
“We have made internal investments,” he stated. “AI service is where we can provide a lot of value.”
“Many businesses recognize the necessity of adopting AI to remain competitive, yet numerous mid-sized companies struggle with where to begin or lack the resources to implement this technology strategically and securely,” said Bill McLaughlin, CEO of Thrive. “At Thrive, we are committed to ensuring our customers are not left behind, understanding that AI can significantly impact their business. Developing our Managed AI Services offering was a strategic decision and investment, enabling our customers to receive the support they need to lead in adoption while benefiting from the exceptional service and substantial ROI they expect from Thrive.”
“At Thrive, we have our private GenAI offering – so they know where all the data is,” Gray said. “We also have assessment offerings, so we can give you an AI use case assessment and an adoption report.”
Leaning into its highly consultative approach and high-touch customer experience, Thrive’s Managed AI services support businesses across the entire AI adoption journey – from development to deployment. Key features of this new offering include:
Use Case Identification. AI can apply to many tasks, and too often, businesses fail to see ROI due to loosely defined use cases that don’t support the business or have well-defined goals attached to them. Through careful discussions about their business and industry, Thrive will coach customers in identifying the best use cases to drive the most impact.
“Tools are available now, including private Chat GPT tools running inside the customer environment,” Gray indicated. “It is very tightly integrated with the rest of the infrastructure. The result is that it is a couple of weeks to value – a couple of weeks compared to a year.”
Data Assessment: Thrive ensures that organizations have the right data infrastructure and quality to support AI initiatives.
“Right now, there are too many businesses waiting on the sideline, and we are not sure how they will adopt,” Gray said. “This is an accelerator.”
Security Implementation: Thrive has long been a leader in providing NextGen cybersecurity services. With its deep market intelligence and 24X7X365 monitoring, Thrive is bringing its security industry leadership to its Manage AI Services, ensuring data is protected and well-governed, and AI is protected from bad actors.
“The fact that we are offering such a scale service that is robust, to bring value to the customer very quickly, is significant,” Gray stated. “With all of our security services, not only can we build them in a secure way, but we can make them more secure.”
AI Policy & Governance: Informed on the latest compliance requirements and based on industry best practices, Thrive’s team of experts will work with customers to determine how, when, and where AI is used within their business and ensure everyone follows the policy.
Employee Training: Thrive’s Managed AI experts will train employees on how to use the tools at their disposal, the pre-determined use cases the business has agreed to, and policies and best practices to ensure they are being as productive as possible, without putting the business at risk.
“From getting data sources organized and ready to ensuring the cloud capabilities are in place and optimized, there is so much technical prep that has to be done to ensure a business is ready to deploy AI and use it successfully,” Gray said. “That’s why Thrive has gone out of its way to build a team of AI experts completely dedicated to just this practice. From data readiness to customization to deployment, Thrive’s Managed AI services support businesses in the entire adoption process.”
Thrive currently manages Copilot implementations for various customers across industries to help them boost efficiency and productivity. With the new Managed AI services, Thrive is expanding to build personalized, private AI for its customers, reducing the risk of employees inputting sensitive materials into public models. As AI continues to evolve and adoption among Thrive’s user base continues to grow, Thrive will also manage workflows to ensure all AI tools are working efficiently and as intended, as well as take on vertical model development to provide accurate and industry-specific outputs.