The Problem We Set Out to Solve
In the early 2010s, Manuel Ruiz watched a pattern repeat across New York's commercial real estate sector. Companies with 50–500 employees were caught in the middle—too big to ignore IT, too small to justify enterprise vendor pricing. They got reactive support. They paid premium rates. They assumed that was just how IT services worked.
It wasn't. It was a market failure. The "enterprise IT" playbook that worked for global companies—zero-trust security, predictive maintenance, 24/7 response—was technically feasible for mid-market businesses, too. But no one was offering it. Managed service providers competed on cost, not outcomes. Security was bolted on at the end, not baked into the foundation.
Manuel saw the gap and founded Intelligent Group to fill it.
Building from New York
Intelligent Group launched in New York City in 2015 as an IT consulting and managed services startup. The first clients were in commercial real estate—property managers who needed 24/7 helpdesk, network management, and someone to take security seriously. Manuel embedded himself in their operations, learned their constraints, and built a repeatable playbook.
The early differentiators were simple:
- Transparency first. No surprises. Real-time alerts. SLA-backed commitments. Clients knew exactly what they were paying for and what to expect.
- Security by default. Not compliance theater—real zero-trust architecture, defense-in-depth, and threat hunting. At a price point SMBs could afford.
- Proactive, not reactive. AI-driven monitoring caught problems before end users felt them. The best support is the support they never need.
- Partnership mentality. Growth consulting, technology roadmaps, not just "fix it when it breaks."
Within five years, Intelligent Group was managing infrastructure for 40+ mid-market companies across healthcare, finance, professional services, and real estate.
The Expansion to AI & Automation
By 2020, a new problem surfaced: even proactive managed IT couldn't keep pace with digital transformation. Clients wanted to automate workflows, integrate security into their business processes, and leverage AI without building in-house teams or signing up to experimental platforms.
Intelligent Group began building custom integrations and internal tools. Those tools worked so well that customers asked if they could buy them as products. That feedback sparked the AiT product family—a set of enterprise-grade AI and automation platforms built on top of our core MSP operations.
Today, the AiT platform suite includes:
- AiTCRM — AI-powered CRM and workflow automation for sales teams
- AiTAgent — Slack and Teams bots that automate IT, security, and business operations
- AiTCSG — Building intelligence platform for HVAC, lighting, and occupancy optimization
- AiT SOC Sentinel — AI-augmented security operations center for threat hunting and compliance
- AiT Trust Portal — Third-party risk management and vendor assessment
These aren't sideline ventures. They're built to solve real MSP-customer friction points, and they sit on top of the managed IT foundation that makes them possible.
"Great IT support is invisible. When your systems work flawlessly, you don't think about IT—you think about growing your business. That's what we build for."
The Philosophy: MSPs as Strategic Partners
The managed services industry carries a bad reputation in some circles. "MSPs are just break-fix vendors who upsell." "They neglect your systems until something breaks." "You're a ticket number to them."
Intelligent Group exists to disprove that. We operate as a true extension of our clients' IT teams, not a vendor on a contract. We share risk. We proactively harden infrastructure. We invest in tools that make our clients faster, more secure, and more competitive.
When a client succeeds, we succeed. When they grow, we grow. That's not rhetoric—it's reflected in our pricing, our SLAs, and the fact that 90% of our revenue comes from existing customer renewals and expansion, not new logo hunts.
Today & Tomorrow
As of 2026, Intelligent Group manages IT infrastructure and security operations for 50+ active clients, oversees 500+ managed devices, and maintains a 99.9% uptime SLA across all managed environments. The team has grown from Manuel and one engineer to a 15-person technical staff, plus dedicated support for sales, operations, and product.
The vision for the next five years is clear: continue expanding the AiT platform family to solve additional friction points in enterprise operations. Build deeper integrations with industry-specific tools (Salesforce, ServiceNow, Azure). Expand geographically while maintaining the hands-on, partnership-focused service model that got us here.
We're still based in New York. We still believe that enterprise-grade IT and security are not luxuries reserved for Fortune 500 companies. And we still believe the best MSP relationships feel like partnerships, not vendor lock-in.
That's Intelligent Group. That's our story. And we're just getting started.