MSSP Market News: MSSPs Face New Pressure as Security Skills Gaps and AI Risks Grow

This week did not have one major MSSP announcement that changed the market. But several signals pointed in the same direction: customers need more security help, while vendors are packaging more of that help into products and platforms. Sophos’ 2026 CISO Report showed why MSPs and MSSPs still matter for SMBs that do not have enough security leadership in-house. Fortinet’s 2026 Global Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report adds the talent and budget side of the same story. Security hiring is still difficult, even as attacks become more expensive and AI creates new risks. Fortinet found that 86% of organizations had at least one breach in the past year, and 52% said breaches cost them more than $1 million. The report also found that 56% of IT leaders see the lack of cybersecurity skills as a top cause of breaches, while 49% struggle to get approval to hire more security talent. Additionally, IANS Research and Artico Search findings show cybersecurity employers facing retention pressure, with only 34% of surveyed cybersecurity professionals saying they plan to stay with their current employer over the next year.

So, customers know they have security problems, but many do not have the people, budget or AI expertise to fix them alone. That keeps demand strong for MSSPs that can provide senior security skills, AI governance, automation and day-to-day security coverage. At the same time, vendors are packaging more of that work into products and platforms. For MSSPs, that creates a clear pressure point: they need to show what they add beyond the tool. The strongest providers will focus on outcomes, advisory work, AI governance, identity risk, OT security and response, rather than relying on basic monitoring alone.

Market Pulse: Cybersecurity Deals, Funding, and Platform Shifts

Palo Alto Networks to acquire Portkey: Palo Alto Networks plans to acquire Portkey to strengthen Prisma AIRS with an AI Gateway for managing and securing autonomous AI agents. Portkey gives enterprises a centralized control plane to monitor, route and protect AI transactions across models, agents and MCP servers, which matters as agentic AI moves from experiments into production. For MSSPs, this is pointing to a new security problem customers will need help managing: how AI agents access systems, what data they touch, what actions they take, and how those actions are governed.

PwC partners with Google Cloud for managed security: PwC is moving more directly into the managed security market with a Google Cloud-powered detection-and-response service aimed at smaller and mid-sized enterprises. The offering uses Google Security Operations and agentic AI workflows to support 24/7 monitoring, threat detection, alert triage and mitigation, with human checkpoints built into the process. Large consulting firms pushing packaged, AI-driven managed security deeper into the midmarket, a customer segment many service providers already serve.

Datalink taps Arctic Wolf for AI-Led Security Operations: Datalink Networks has partnered with Arctic Wolf to bring AI-led security operations to its customers across the U.S. and Canada. Through the partnership, Datalink customers will gain access to Arctic Wolf’s security operations portfolio, powered by the Aurora Superintelligence Platform and delivered through its Aurora Agentic SOC. The goal is to help organizations improve detection, investigation, response and recovery without having to build and run a full SOC on their own. Arctic Wolf’s platform brings together telemetry from across customer environments, applies AI to enrich and analyze that data, and keeps human experts involved to validate outcomes and guide decisions. For Datalink, that creates a way to extend its managed services with more structured security operations support.

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