Pax8 CEO Scott Chasin ‘worried’ for companies who aren’t leaning into AI

“If you’re not embracing and rearchitecting your software development lifecycle around AI you’ll be at a massive disadvantage over the next 12 to 18 months,” Chasin tells CRN

The time is fast approaching when software code will be written by AI and beyond human comprehension, and this is a huge opportunity for businesses.

That’s the opinion of Pax8 CEO Scott Chasin, speaking recently to CRN.

“AI represents a number of opportunities and challenges for society and business,” Chasin begins.

“Today we sell software, tomorrow we’ll sell agents that manage software. There is a lack of awareness of how disruptive the AI impact is going to be, both in terms of the opportunity and the risk for those that don’t lean in today. It’s potentially harmful in terms of business disruption.”

Chasin explains AI agents will effectively run businesses in the near future.

“Every small business will have an AI agent, like a web address. It will greet visitors at the digital door, manage supply chains, drive growth and free up small businesses to focus on human connections and innovation, instead of the drudgery of daily operations. That’s a huge opportunity for every MSP and every software vendor that’s out there. It’s a reality that’s coming fast, it’s not decades out.”

He goes on to describe how the AI revolution will affect software development, and what this will mean for businesses.

“The software stack has evolved from machine code to layers of compilers and frameworks. Soon AI will construct its own stack on top of ours and we’ll no longer write software directly but with the agentic intelligence that orchestrates it all. Ironically this will be convenient because there’ll be a time when what lies beneath is beyond our comprehension. It’s incredible to think about. This revolution, if you lean in, will represent a mountain of opportunity in the future.”

On the flip side, Chasin adds the future might look considerably less rosy for businesses who are slower to exploit AI.

“For those who aren’t leaning in, I’m worried. I speak to a lot of software vendors and SaaS providers. Are they exploiting AI-enabled software engineering, AI peer programming, newer frontier models, like the OpenAI o1 model they just released? Software engineering is largely going to be agentic based. AI is already writing an amazing amount of code today, if you’re not embracing and rearchitecting your software development lifecycle around AI you’ll be at a massive disadvantage over the next 12 to 18 months.”

He concedes it can be hard to keep up with the pace of change in AI, but explains businesses who fail to rise to the challenge will ultimately be unsuccessful.

“The rate of change in these models is difficult to keep up with. You can’t make an assessment, based off of a model’s capability six months or even six weeks ago. If you’re not creating a muscle around it to keep up, then your assessment is already outdated.

“I’m a technologist, I have to touch it. On weekends in my spare time, which is limited, I use AI to write code. I know its capabilities, I know where it’s going to take us and I try to keep up with the progression cycle with these frontier models. You’re going to see a world over the next five years that looks completely different in terms of software engineering.”

He continues to stress the urgency of learning and using AI, adding it’s not too soon to start educating the younger generation.

“I have two girls at home, I’m raising them with the philosophy to be visionaries, to think about and dream about the future. We need to teach our kids to dream, not just algebra and chemistry.

“The future will belong to those who can paint on the canvas of the machines. We have product managers today who provide the scoping and story architecture for our sprints, that’ll become more important in the future, maybe we’ll have vision managers instead of product managers. The day isn’t far out when we tell the machine what products we want to create today.”

When asked if there are aspects of this AI-driven future which worry him, Chasin chooses an optimistic lens.

“The super intelligence explosion on the horizon is going to be challenging geo-politically. The race to artificial general intelligence and maybe ASI [Artificial Super Intelligence, which surpasses human intelligence] is underway. You can see it in the spend. Microsoft, Amazon and Google combined spent over $50bn on it in the last 18 months. That investment speaks for itself in how AI will impact every aspect of business and society.

“Of course that’ll lead to turbulence, but I choose to be an optimist. AI will give us all Iron Man suits. We have to look at not a displacement theory for humanity, but one that empowers us to not only be dreamers but to make those dreams a reality. Ultimately that’s what I think Pax8 does, not just for MSPs but for the SMB. We’re unlocking the dreams of every business through the what’s next.”