Proofpoint’s Protect 2025 conference in Nashville this week felt less like a product splash and more like a turning point. The company leaned hard into its vision of the agentic workspace, where people and AI agents collaborate, and made several moves that suggest it sees MSPs not as afterthoughts, but as critical execution arms.
For MSP leaders, this isn’t just vendor theater. It’s a battleground. The threats your SMB clients face are morphing fast, and Proofpoint is now stepping into the ring with you.
AI Agents Are the New Attack Surface
At the keynote, CEO Sumit Dhawan (pictured above) framed the shift simply: AI’s not a tool you add, it’s a coworker. Agents click, share, and act, which means they can be tricked just like people.
Proofpoint’s demos showed how attackers are already exploiting this reality. Invisible “prompt injections” can be hidden inside an email. To a human, the message looks normal. But when a user asks Copilot to “summarize,” the AI executes the attacker’s hidden command, potentially pulling files, creating accounts, or exposing sensitive data.
Chief Strategy Officer Ryan Kalember didn’t hold back: “AI assistants are profoundly worse than humans at resisting social engineering.”
For MSPs, this means your clients’ attack surface has just multiplied. They may not be writing their own AI agents, but they’re connecting to third-party ones at a staggering pace. Each one is another potential weak point, and MSPs will be judged on how well they can bring order and safety to this new environment.
Proofpoint Protect 2025’s Four Big Promises with Real Questions
Proofpoint announced four of what it’s calling “industry first” innovations designed to secure this hybrid human and agent world:
- AI Exploit Detection Over Email: A new feature in Proofpoint Prime Threat Protection that blocks malicious prompt injections before they ever reach an inbox.
- Data Security Complete and AI Data Governance: A consolidated platform for discovering, classifying, and monitoring sensitive data across email, endpoints, and the cloud, while also policing sanctioned and unsanctioned AI use.
- Secure Agent Gateway: A control system built on Model Context Protocol (MCP) to monitor AI agents, enforce policies, and block or redact sensitive data before it is exposed.
- Satori Agents and MCP Access: Proofpoint’s own AI agents designed to reduce alert fatigue, automate remediation, and even integrate with other platforms like Microsoft Copilot and CrowdStrike Charlotte.
These announcements are ambitious and signal that Proofpoint is serious about protecting the agentic workspace. But here’s the rub: Enterprise customers may have the teams and budgets to roll these out effectively. SMBs do not. The question is whether Proofpoint can package these solutions so MSPs can realistically deliver them at SMB scale and price points.
SMBs Aren’t Different, and That’s the Point
In a hallway conversation with MSP Success, Dhawan reinforced what MSPs have been saying for years:
“MSPs are becoming even more critical. Their environments aren’t that different from enterprises. They still use Microsoft 365, Slack, and all the same tools. For an MSP to show value, it’s about keeping client networks up and running, keeping them safe, and enabling them to scale.”
The difference is that SMBs are unlikely to build their own AI systems. Instead, they’ll adopt third-party agents, which introduce new threats without the oversight that large enterprises can afford. That’s where MSPs become indispensable: providing governance, guardrails, and protection to clients who don’t know what they don’t know.
The Channel Panel: A Real Pivot
One of the most telling sessions was the channel panel featuring Stan de Boisset, SVP of Global Channels at Proofpoint; Chari Rhoades, VP of Channel Americas; and Scott Goree, SVP of Partners at Optiv.
Their message was clear: Proofpoint is putting genuine investment behind its MSP channel. Among the key points:
Partners Drive Growth: Proofpoint has gone from around 40% partner-led deals to around 80%, and leadership now calls channel “core, not optional.”
Services as Differentiation: MSPs are encouraged to wrap compliance, governance, implementation, and ongoing monitoring services around Proofpoint’s technology. That’s where the margin and client stickiness will come from.
Platform Thinking: Customers don’t want to manage 17+ disjointed tools anymore. Proofpoint is positioning itself as one of the few integrated platforms SMBs can rely on for email, collaboration, and data security.
Ecosystem Approach: Proofpoint is integrating with CrowdStrike, Microsoft, ConnectWise, and other major players. As Goree put it, “Customers have 17 tools. They’re not asking for number 18. They want fewer, smarter ones.”
ConnectWise Partnership: Proof in Action
Talk is one thing, but Proofpoint also made moves to back it up. In August, the company announced a formal partnership with ConnectWise, a platform already embedded with more than 40,000 MSPs globally.
Through this integration, Proofpoint Essentials will be available more easily to the SMB channel, with automated billing through ConnectWise Manage to cut down operational friction. This is exactly the kind of tactical step MSPs need; a vendor making its enterprise-grade detection and protection consumable and operable within the MSP stack.
This partnership may not make headlines outside the channel, but for MSPs, it’s proof that Proofpoint is serious about meeting providers where they live.
The Reality Check for MSP CEOs
Proofpoint’s vision is impressive, but MSP CEOs should keep a few things top of mind:
Pricing Flexibility: If Proofpoint insists on enterprise-level pricing, SMB adoption will lag. MSPs need per seat and modular models.
Complexity: The features sound powerful, but if they require a CISO and a SOC to manage, MSPs won’t deploy them. Proofpoint must deliver MSP-ready management.
Execution: This is a real pivot for Proofpoint, but MSPs should evaluate how well partner programs, support, and training keep pace with the marketing narrative.
Value Translation: Everyone is now promising AI governance. MSPs must translate vendor buzzwords into tangible outcomes for SMB leaders—uptime, safety, compliance, and scalability.
Bottom Line
Proofpoint Protect 2025 wasn’t just about new products. It was about signaling a pivot: from enterprise vendor to MSP ally. With the ConnectWise partnership, the channel panel for the media, and a bold AI vision, the message is clear.
The SMBs your MSP supports are facing enterprise-grade threats without enterprise-grade defenses. Proofpoint wants you to bridge that gap with its tools. If you can translate these big announcements into client-friendly services, you’ll strengthen your value and carve out new revenue streams.
If not, these innovations may remain stuck in enterprise land while SMBs continue to stumble forward unprotected.
