AI has moved faster than most of us can keep up with

Every week there is a new model, a new tool, a new headline. For MSPs, the hard part is not the hype. It is knowing what is real, what is worth your time, and what your customers will actually pay for.

We kept hearing the same thing from partners. You do not want more theory. You want to see AI working, on real hardware, in a way you can actually explain and sell.

So we built something for exactly that. Meet LeaderLab.

What is LeaderLab?

LeaderLab is our new hands on AI series. It is where AI stops being a slide and becomes something you can see, touch and understand.

Instead of another presentation about what AI might do, LeaderLab shows you a working AI machine built live, from the ground up. Real hardware, real setup, real AI running in the room. It is led by Rob Crane (CIAOPS), one of the most respected voices in the Australian channel.

LeaderLab is the hands on arm of the new Leader Cloud AI Centre of Excellence, our single home for Copilot, AI training, LeaderLab and AI product enablement. All of it built around practical experience, not theory.

Why local AI, and why now

Cloud AI is powerful, but it is not the whole story. More and more customers are asking about running AI on their own hardware, for control, for data sovereignty, and for cost. The trouble is that very few partners have seen what that actually involves.

LeaderLab is designed to close that gap. You will see AI running on premises on a real machine, and AI running in Azure, so you understand where each one fits and how to talk about it with confidence.

There is a real commercial story here too. Local AI needs the right hardware and the right hands to set it up and support it. That is a service, and it is one your customers cannot easily do on their own.

What LeaderLab covers

Across the series, LeaderLab will get into the practical building blocks of delivering AI, including:

• Setting up and configuring local AI with tools like Microsoft Foundry Local and Ollama
• Using developer tools such as Visual Studio Code to work with local models
• Connecting to and using local models through API access
• Building and integrating real applications on top of local models
• Bringing AI workloads together across on premises and Azure
• Turning all of it into a service you can deliver for your customers

The goal is simple. You leave knowing what local AI really takes, and how to make it a genuine part of what you offer.

This is just the beginning

LeaderLab is a series, and we are starting in Adelaide. The first session is deliberately small and hands on, so partners get a proper look rather than a quick demo.

We will be sharing full details soon, including dates and how to take part. For now, this is your first look at where LeaderLab is heading, and the kind of practical, no fluff AI enablement we are building for the channel.