AI-fueled cyberattacks are accelerating, and small and midsize businesses are increasingly caught in the crosshairs. At the same time, MSPs are under pressure to deliver stronger security outcomes with limited resources.
In an interview with Channel Insider following RSAC 2026, Coro CEO Joe Sykora outlined how the threat landscape is evolving—and why automation, platform consolidation, and channel-first strategies are becoming essential for MSPs supporting SMB customers.
AI-driven attacks surge as SMBs face enterprise-level risk
It’s no secret that threat actors are leveraging AI tooling just as frequently as standard businesses are worldwide. As cyber attacks reach new levels of scale, Sykora said that things like phishing attempts are also becoming more sophisticated.
“AI and now agentic AI are certainly playing a big part in how security is changing,” Sykora said. “We’ve seen more activity this year on the system already than we have previously.”
At the same time, SMBs are increasingly finding themselves the targets of widespread attack attempts with little to no additional budget or internal resources to address their security needs.
“SMBs really face the same risks as enterprise organizations do now, at least when we’re talking about the sort of general attacks and not specific, targeted plays,” Sykora said.
“When we think about those needs, MSPs have always been part of the solution for the SMB sector,” he continued, noting that partners are just as, if not more important, to their customers than ever before because of the changes to the attack surface many organizations are seeing.
Automation becomes critical to MSP efficiency and margins
Sykora shifted Coro’s focus to exclusively work through the channel shortly after joining the company in 2025. He was then promoted to the CEO role in July.
Now, he told Channel Insider, he wants to see MSPs leverage Coro’s platform to unlock efficiency through workflow automation.
“The number of attacks is continuing to rise, and MSPs are now facing some of the same resourcing issues their customers face. If we can automate more of the workflow, some of the remediation and alerting and things, that builds operational efficiency for our MSPs,” Sykora said.
“And for MSPs, operational efficiencies build better margins, and that ties directly into profitability,” he continued, noting that MSPs can leverage platforms like the one Coro offers to scale their existing workforce’s capability significantly.
As partners face increasing pressure on margins and weigh how they can grow their businesses while continuing ot provide value to SMBs, Sykora said he wants to see partners do more with less, or at least the same, to keep up with security demands.
Coro expands AI-integrated platform to support MSP scale
The Coro platform provides MSPs and SMB end-user customers with automated ticketing, alert triage, and a unified interface to easily view issues and take the necessary action.
The company recently announced its MCP server integration capabilities to address workloads in popular AI tooling. By combining Coro’s unified security data with the AI platform of a user’s choice, MCP enables deeper analysis and more flexible workflows for partners and customers.
Above all, Sykora said, the company wants to build the tooling MSPs need to adapt to the evolving needs and demands of their customers.
“It’s hard to comprehend how quickly things are changing, and it’s a lot different for MSPs now than it used to be. Partners really need to embrace the new ways of doing business and pivot to succeed,” said Sykora.At Coro, he’s working on the same. Sykora told Channel Insider he views 2025 as a foundational year for the company, and now he’s focusing on executing the plans built over the last 12 months in 2026.