Pax8 launches 8os & 8bot for small business partners

Pax8 has launched 8os and 8bot for its small business channel partners, aiming to help them manage AI use across small and medium-sized business customers.

The launch follows Pax8 research showing AI adoption among smaller companies is outpacing formal controls. According to the company, 90% of SMBs are using or testing AI, but only 23% have a documented AI policy. It also found that 47% had identified unauthorised shadow AI in their business during the past six months.

8os is designed as a central system for partners to oversee the AI agents, models, tools and providers used by customers. It gives managed service providers and other technology partners a single place to track usage, costs and security, while applying common operating rules across clients.

Alongside it, 8bot is being introduced as a managed AI coworker that partners can deploy to end users at client organisations. The tool is intended to help employees complete routine work, with partners controlling deployment and governance through 8os.

The move expands Pax8's push into managed AI services for the small business market. The new products sit on top of its existing commerce, identity and billing infrastructure, which serves more than 47,000 IT partners and over 800,000 SMBs worldwide.

Pax8's survey data points to a gap between experimentation and oversight. It found that 71% of SMBs using AI have already built at least one AI solution, but only 31% of those have a formal review or approval process in place.

That trend is creating a more fragmented environment inside smaller companies, where multiple AI tools may be used without central visibility. For technology partners, it opens a new area of work around policy, cost control and monitoring as customers seek outside help to manage AI deployment.

Pax8 also found that 65% of small business leaders believe they need to move quickly on AI, while 84% would trust an outside technology adviser to help implement it. A further 70% believe they need external partners to realise the technology's full value.

Partner focus

Pax8 is pitching 8os primarily at the channel rather than directly at end customers. It says the system was built to make managed intelligence services more structured and repeatable for partners serving large numbers of smaller businesses.

Key elements include a shared governance layer for different AI services, client-specific memory and context for AI workers, and billing controls that track use by user and customer. The system also allows partners to set hard spending caps and price services through the existing Pax8 commercial relationship.

By contrast, 8bot is positioned as the employee-facing layer. Pax8 says it gives partners a packaged AI service that can be rolled out across customer organisations without requiring a bespoke build for each client.

Scott Chasin, chief executive officer of Pax8, said: "AI is becoming a worker, and that changes what small businesses need from their technology partners. The agentic workforce will be diverse. It will span different agents, models, tools, and providers, and all that intelligence has to be governed, managed, and turned into real business outcomes. That's what we built 8os and 8bot to do. 8os gives our partners the operating system to manage that complexity across every customer, while 8bot gives them a managed AI coworker they can deploy, support, and monetize. Together, they make managed intelligence repeatable and scalable. This is the next chapter of the small business economy, and our partners are built to lead it."

Early access

Pax8 opened limited early access to both products this week. Wider availability is planned for early next year.

The launch reflects a broader effort by technology distributors and cloud marketplaces to define a role in AI governance for smaller firms that often lack in-house policy, compliance and procurement teams. In that market, tools that combine oversight with deployment may appeal to both service providers and cost-conscious customers.

Libby McIlhany, chief product officer of Pax8, said: "Our partners have told us they want to deliver AI value without building a custom solution for every client. We built 8os and 8bot with the partner experience in mind, giving them an effective way to manage and govern the AI running inside their customers' businesses and a pre-packaged AI coworker that's easy to deploy. Through these solutions, they can deliver measurable outcomes to SMBs globally and turn AI into a managed recurring service at scale."