Decoding AI for IT: 6 actionable insights for technology leaders in 2024
Every time I speak with an IT leader to understand their processes, priorities, and problems, I learn something new.
But lately, one thing has been coming up fairly consistently – AI in IT.
How you leverage AI in IT will depend on your business, target customers, organizational culture, and other nuances. But we’re past the question of whether you leverage AI.
There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle. According to Gartner, “By 2030, every dollar of IT spend will have an AI component”.
We, at Atomicwork, wanted to help IT leaders understand what their peers were doing around AI, so they could benchmark their own AI adoption. So, we collaborated with our friends, Stephen Mann and ITSM.tools, to conduct a study aimed at exactly this.
The results were published in the State of AI in IT, 2024 report. If you haven’t seen it yet, I would recommend you do. You’ll find a ton of rich data and insights from industry experts.
I want to share a few actionable insights from the report, so you can go into 2024 with an informed AI strategy:
1. The early-mover advantage
Insight: 58% of organizations are still in the early stages of AI adoption.
Action: Get a head start on competition by leveraging this period for strategic planning and low-stakes exploration.
How soon businesses start taking AI seriously will determine the winners and losers once the dust settles. IT leaders will soon be inundated by the C-suite and the board to account for their AI strategy, adoption, and impact.
2023 was the year of tinkering with AI in general and GenAI in particular. 2024 will be the breakout year for AI in IT. Technology leaders need to start running small experiments, learn fast, and adapt to solve the business’s internal and external challenges.
2. Perceived benefits of AI
Insight: Top benefits of AI include ‘data analysis and synthesizing insights’ (45%) and ‘chatbots for self-service adoption’ (38%).
Action: Focus on these areas for maximum impact. Leverage AI to enhance data insights and streamline customer interactions.
We asked IT professionals, “What benefits do you anticipate or have realized through AI?”. I have to admit, this one took me by surprise. Data analysis and synthesizing insights emerged as the top answer. I’m assuming it reflects more “anticipation” than “realization”.
Either way, there’s no denying that AI can do a vastly better job analyzing large amounts of data. The evolution of analytics capabilities goes from Descriptive (what has already happened) to Predictive (what could happen) to Prescriptive (what should you do). AI can help businesses leapfrog to prescriptive analytics by finding patterns and identifying the path for maximum impact.
Chatbots were the second most popular application of AI. This is a no-brainer. That said, IT teams need to be mindful of end-user behavior and expectations. I’ll unpack that in a bit, but to put it bluntly, an AI chatbot would be great for deflecting repetitive IT (and HR) queries but for complex troubleshooting, users will need a human touch.
3. Barriers to adoption
Insight: The main challenges to AI adoption include ‘customer data security’ (42%) and ‘additional costs’ (39%).
Action: Prioritize addressing these concerns in your compliance planning and IT roadmap. Emphasize security measures and explore cost-effective AI solutions.
On the flipside to the perceived benefits, we asked IT folks what was stopping them from taking the leap.
The top barrier to AI adoption was ‘data security’, which aligns with the conversations that I have with IT leaders. Almost, 40% of folks mentioned cost as a barrier, which reflects a short-term focus. At scale, AI will drastically reduce operating costs even though the upfront capital expense may be high.
Another big surprise was that more people were concerned about ‘inaccuracy and hallucinations’ as opposed to ‘governance and compliance’ which is something that more IT leaders should start thinking about.
‘Lack of expertise’ also ranked fairly high on the list. Let’s talk about that and the cost concern.
4. Resource allocation for AI
Insight: 60% of organizations allocate at least 5% of their IT budget to AI. And 65% of organizations have two or more people focused on AI.
Action: Consider AI investments as catalysts for long-term success.
Gartner analysts claim that ‘By 2030, every dollar of IT spend will have an AI component’. I believe that broadly all B2B products and services will leverage AI much sooner, or risk becoming obsolete.
The AI race between Microsoft, Google, Meta, and others will benefit organizations in general by providing them with the infrastructure to build AI capabilities in-house.
Even the solutions you use for IT service management and operations management etc. will come bundled with AI. Most of these will start with GenAI and increasingly add more sophistication as the technology becomes more versatile and compute-efficient.
In terms of expertise, more businesses will either hire or develop talent that specializes in developing and applying AI. This would either be located centrally or deployed within different functions.
I would lean more towards the latter model. An integrated AI expert who has an ear to the ground and also understands the technology is more likely to develop pragmatic solutions.
5. Strategic AI no-go areas
Insight: 41% of the respondents believe AI shouldn’t be used in ethical decision-making.
Action: Establish clear ethical guidelines for AI applications at the workplace. Ensure responsible and transparent AI use.
A question that we asked, that we didn’t see others asking, was “Which areas of the business would you like AI to not penetrate?”. We were expecting interesting insights from this one and the respondents didn’t disappoint.
IT leaders (and end users) would like AI to not be used for ‘ethical and legal decision making’. This is one of the few areas where the final call should always be taken by a human.
Other popular responses were ‘people management’ and ‘customer relationship management’. ‘Handling customer data’ and ‘handling sensitive business data or IP’ were next in line, tied at number 4.
I reckon AI will evolve to address common data security concerns – a lot better than humans currently can – and specialized AI will emerge that will become essential for CISOs.
6. End-user satisfaction and adoption
Insight: 75% of end-users already use free AI tools like ChatGPT. On a different note, email and phone calls are currently the most popular channels to contact support (26% and 25%, respectively).
Action: Avoid building in a silo and springing the tech to users. Work with end users to solve their problems.
If you’re expecting people to change their behavior, especially in an AI context, your core operating principle needs to be “pander to their inherent laziness”.
Thanks to ChatGPT, DALL-E, and others, your users are comfortable with the idea of using AI – sadly, more than you would have wanted. That might not guarantee adoption, though. If you build (or buy) a multi-million dollar product and employees still call IT for support, you’re not optimizing the return on that investment.
Before launching the AI tech to users, have a deliberate plan for change management – not the ITSM process, but more organizational. An underrated tip is to be friends with your next-door neighbors, HR.
If you’re planning an AI initiative that impacts all employees, like getting a new ITSM software, collaborate with the HR person who is great at generating buzz and getting everyone excited about things.
Chances are, they’re more strategic than you give them credit for.
Closing thoughts
The pressure to adopt AI is already mounting up on IT leaders – from boardroom conversations to requests from end users. SaaS made ‘Shadow IT’ reasonably easy. But ChatGPT has taken “Shadow AI” to a whole new level. The sooner you plan and get started with AI adoption in IT, the better.
As you navigate the AI landscape, I hope these insights offer a roadmap for informed decision-making and strategic planning.
Download the full report to access more of these trends and equip your team for success in the AI-driven future.
By Vijay Rayapati, Atomicwork
Meet the Atomicwork team at stand 595 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
3 Ways AI and Automation can Elevate Your Service Desk Management
IT Service Management professionals face the challenge of meeting increasing demands while maintaining high standards of efficiency and user satisfaction. Thankfully, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation offer a lifeline, revolutionising the way service desks operate.
The Service Desk Institute’s ‘A View from the Frontline’ report found that:
• 75% of service desks had automation at the top of their priority list
• 43% of service desks wanted to see improvements in their ITSM tool’s automation capabilities
Here, we explore three transformative ways AI and automation can elevate your service desk management.
1. Process Automation for Efficiency and User Experience
Streamlining processes lies at the heart of effective service desk management. By harnessing automation, organisations can reap a multitude of benefits:
• Time Savings: Automating routine tasks frees up valuable time for ITSM professionals to focus on strategic initiatives and complex issues.
• Reduced Errors: Manual errors are inevitable but costly. Automation minimises these errors, ensuring consistency and accuracy in service delivery.
• Scalability: As businesses grow, so do their service desk needs. Automation provides scalability by effortlessly handling increased volumes without compromising quality.
• Better Experience: Users crave seamless experiences. By automating workflows, service desk interactions become smoother and more satisfying.
As a very simple example, consider the process of onboarding a new employee. Once a request is made by a hiring manager, many of the following tasks can be partially or completely automated. For example, an ITSM tool could:
• Send a request confirmation to the hiring manager
• Create new tasks in the ITSM tool and assign them to relevant teams
• Send email notifications to any teams that need to complete manual actions
• Create a user account for the new starter and set up permissions
• Order a keycard for the new starter
• Order and allocate new devices like smartphones, PCs, and laptops
• Enable an Office 365 license
• Document the process from start to finish
And this is just one simple example! Sunrise’s user-friendly process builder empowers organisations to effortlessly automate various tasks. Common use cases include onboarding new starters like the example above, reporting lost devices, managing GDPR compliance, and handling leaver processes.
2. Integration Automation: Connecting ITSM with Other Business Applications
The modern service desk operates within a complex ecosystem of interconnected tools and systems. Integration automation bridges these gaps, offering a range of benefits:
• Streamlined Communication: Seamless integration fosters smooth communication between disparate systems, reducing delays and misunderstandings.
• Enhanced Data Accuracy: Automated data exchange ensures information remains consistent across platforms, minimising the risk of errors and discrepancies.
• Fast Problem Resolution: Integration automation enables swift access to relevant data, accelerating incident resolution and minimising downtime.
• Comprehensive Reporting: By aggregating data from various sources, integrated systems provide comprehensive insights for informed decision-making.
• Adherence to Compliance: With automated compliance checks and processes, organizations can ensure adherence to regulatory requirements without manual intervention.
Sunrise leverages AI to seamlessly integrate with a plethora of business applications, from development tools like Jira to CRMs. Additionally, its two-way conversation feature with Microsoft Teams enables service desk professionals to manage incidents seamlessly, receive real-time updates, and request more details—all within the familiar Teams interface.
3. AI-Driven Chatbots for Enhanced User Experience
In an era where instant gratification reigns supreme, AI-powered chatbots emerge as game-changers for service desk management:
• Quicker Response Time: Chatbots offer round-the-clock support, providing instant responses to user queries and issues.
• Automated Troubleshooting: Through intelligent algorithms, chatbots can diagnose and resolve common issues autonomously, minimising manual intervention.
• Knowledge Augmentation: By tapping into vast repositories of knowledge, chatbots empower users with relevant information and resources.
• Proactive Suggestions: AI-powered chatbots can anticipate user needs and provide proactive recommendations, enhancing the overall user experience.
• Improved Productivity: With routine queries handled by chatbots, service desk analysts can focus on more complex tasks, boosting productivity and efficiency.
In Sunrise, analysts can leverage ChatGPT to find solutions to questions swiftly, further enhancing the user experience and streamlining service desk operations.
In conclusion, AI and automation hold immense promise for revolutionising service desk management. By embracing these technologies, ITSM professionals can unlock new levels of efficiency, scalability, and user satisfaction. With Sunrise Software's advanced features and integrations, the journey towards a smarter, more agile service desk has never been more attainable!
Learn more about Sunrise Software's IT Service Management solutions here: https://www.sunrisesoftware.com/it-service-management
By Sunrise Software
Meet the Sunrise Software team at stand 540 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
The service delivery excellence matrix: A self-evaluation framework for IT and business teams to accomplish their service aspirations
From accelerating productivity to crafting impeccable service experiences, businesses strive for digital transformation as one way to achieve their business goals. To realise their vision, they need to harmonise their approach with dynamic factors. For instance, they should not only derive value from their existing IT investments, but also incorporate the latest tech advancements like GenAI and bring a security-first perspective to service delivery.
The impediments to fulfilling service aspirations
In an everyday service environment, IT teams are often involved in a variety of activities. These could range from swiftly resolving major IT incidents to overcoming security contingencies with emergency IT changes. Dousing such fires everyday, striking a fine balance is no easy task for them, let alone pursuing their strategic vision.
To elaborate, let's assume that a company aims to improve the security posture of its employee onboarding process. While provisioning access to business-critical resources during the onboarding process, the following questions arise:
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Do they employ generic or custom forms to collect information? Are these forms dynamic to help allocate resources and access permissions based on their roles?
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Are the approvals obtained from the right stakeholders? Do they utilize approval workflows to ensure checks and balances?
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Is the access provided manually or automatically? Are intelligent automations involved in plugging security gaps?
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Do they share passwords manually via emails and chats? Do they integrate their ITSM and PAM solutions to maintain the integrity of these passwords?
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Is the IT team solely responsible for processing onboarding requests? Do they share context with other enterprise teams like HR and facilities to prevent tasks from falling through the cracks?
Finding the road to achieving service aspirations
Amidst these challenges, for any company looking to accomplish such strategic goals, finding the answers to these questions can be daunting without clear guiding principles. Instead, leaders can go back to the drawing board to find the right way to mold their service management practices.
To begin, the organization's leaders can examine two crucial factors that relate to their service aspirations: their ideation and tech adoption. Here, service delivery ideation indicates their approach to design service management practices. Tech adoption denotes the ITSM capabilities embraced in their ITSM solutions. By combining these two factors, leaders can discover how to effectively translate their ITSM practices into reality with the organization's available technology.
This approach should help them evaluate the current state, determine the state they want to achieve, and uncover the path required to reach this state. With this clarity, leaders can now effortlessly zero in on the right answers to their questions.
To achieve service aspirations, we've developed an e-book that highlights these guiding principles and provides a comprehensive self-evaluation framework.
With this e-book, IT and business leaders can:
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Evaluate their ideation process by examining the scope of the practices, the stakeholders involved and, the ITSM metrics tracked.
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Gauge their tech-adoption based on the breadth of ITSM capabilities implemented, technical expertise, and ability to assimilate the latest innovations.
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Estimate their service maturity, uncover existing gaps, and build an actionable roadmap to achieve their service aspirations.
If you're looking for more insights to implement something similar in your organization, you can access a free copy of the e-book.
By ManageEngine
Meet the ManageEngine team at stand 230 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
Speaker Q&A: Chris Powell, ivanti
Chris Powell is a seasoned leader at Ivanti, holding roles like Area Director and Pre Sales Manager. With over 20 years in Service Management, Endpoint Management, and Security, he excels in digital transformation, automation, and ITIL practices, contributing significantly to customer success and industry advancements.
He will be taking to the stage at Theatre 3 on day 2 of SITS from 1-2pm, to deliver the session 'Expanding ITSM for a connected enterprise'.
Learn more about Chris before seeing his seminar at SITS:
1. How did you get into the profession?
I've always had a passion for technology and problem-solving, which led me to pursue a career in IT Service Management (ITSM). Over the years, I've gained extensive experience and knowledge in this field, starting from my early roles, and progressively advancing through various positions. My journey into the profession began with a combination of formal education in IT and hands-on experience, which allowed me to understand the intricacies of IT service delivery and management.
2. What do you enjoy most about what you do?
What I enjoy most about my work is the opportunity to drive digital transformation and empower organisations to streamline their IT operations. Being able to leverage innovative technologies, such as virtual agents and conversational AI, to enhance employee experiences and automate service delivery is incredibly fulfilling. I thrive on the challenge of finding creative solutions to complex problems and witnessing the tangible impact it has on improving overall efficiency and effectiveness.
3. What’s your most memorable work moment?
One of my most memorable work moments was when I successfully led a major digital transformation project for a large enterprise client. It was a challenging endeavour that involved integrating new ITSM technologies and methodologies across their organisation. Seeing the transformation take shape, from initial planning to full implementation, and witnessing the positive impact it had on both employees and customers was truly rewarding. It reinforced the importance of collaboration, innovation, and perseverance in driving meaningful change.
4. What are the key points you’ll be covering in your seminar session at this year’s SITS?
During my seminar session at SITS, I'll be focusing on extending IT Service Management to support the broader organisation. I'll discuss how virtual agents can empower IT teams to deliver exceptional employee experiences and explore best practices for deploying and fostering employee adoption of conversational AI. Additionally, I'll delve into various use cases for further automating service delivery and share insights on measuring employee experience to ensure IT teams can meet the evolving demands of the modern workplace.
5. What are you looking forward to the most at SITS?
I'm most looking forward to connecting with fellow IT professionals, industry experts, and thought leaders at SITS. It's a fantastic opportunity to exchange ideas, learn from each other's experiences, and gain valuable insights into the latest trends and developments in IT Service Management. I'm particularly excited about the chance to engage in insightful discussions during the seminar sessions and workshops, as well as networking with peers to explore potential collaboration opportunities.
See Chris speak at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
Meet the Brand: IT Care Center
Learn about IT Care Center, before meeting their team at SITS next month...
What do IT Care Center do?
IT Care Center (ITCC) is a fast, scalable, ITIL-accredited ITSM platform that enhances cross-organisational performance.
ITCC is designed to meet business technology needs, from service and support to full process management.
It encompasses all the following use cases:
- ITSM - IT Service Management that is ITIL aligned
- ESM - Enterprise Service Management solution, from HR to Finance, Legal and Facilities Management
- MSP - Managed Service Provider platform, built to boost efficiency, productivity, and business value
- Help Desk - One solution to cover all IT Help Desk Services, for improved quality and delivery.
How did you get started?
Technology professionals are constantly challenged by the expanding role IT plays within the organisation. We enable medium sized to large businesses to follow ITIL guidelines, with industry best practices that were designed to help IT departments better serve their organisation.
Ever since we started That’s IT in 2017, we’ve developed the ITCC products. We’ve worked hard to keep our platform affordable, fast to implement, and easy to use. Our R&D teams continue to add new features, as our product continues to evolve to meet the ever-evolving needs of IT.
What are you looking forward to most at SITS?
We are looking forward to meeting organisations that wish to expand their potential with a new, fresh and easy to use ITSM and even go beyond ITSM to provide ESM or MSP functionality with a unified, seamless and cost-effective solution across their organisation.
We’re also excited to meet channel partners (resellers, MSPs, consultants, system integrators and distributors) that wish to collaborate with us and benefit from our partnership program.
It will also be great to get some product feedback from industry leaders and network with customers and stake holders.
Why should visitors come to your stand?
Visitors should come to our stand as we are a new player in the UK ITSM marketplace. We offer a cost effective ITSM alternative for budget sensitive organisations which want to achieve more goals with less spend. We’re also excited to share our excellent offering for Channel Partners that wish to resell or implement our solution.
At 3pm on both days of the show, IT Care Center will host an AI & Cocktails demo event showing how integrated AI chat works inside the platform. Guests are welcome to experience the benefits of AI in ITSM first-hand, while relaxing and enjoying a free cocktail – on us! In addition, we’ll be running a prize draw for a set of Sony WH1000XM4/B Premium Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones, valued at $260.
Meet the IT Care Center team at stand 480 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
Tackling Shadow IT & Wasted Software
There are broadly 3 kinds of software in any organisation; the applications you need, the applications you have but don’t need... and all the software you don’t even know about.
Consider the ITIL v4 description of Configuration Items (CI) as “any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service”, then it’s important for ITSM teams to tackle the issue of all the ‘unknown’ web apps out there, not just because Shadow IT is a financial and data security risk to businesses, but also because much of that software is needed by the business and needs understanding, capturing within a CMDB and managing through software policy.
There’s good reason to do this too. While Gartner research estimates that unknown, ‘Shadow IT’ can be responsible for as much as 30% of total IT expenditure, it is not the same as identifying all the unused software that costs the business money but delivers no value. Unused software is pure waste, and typically equates to 30% of software spend. Tackling unused software is clearly a hot cost-saving activity then if you have the right ITAM / SAM solutions and knowledge to confidently eliminate wastage without impacting users.
So, understanding and managing software policy no matter where that software resides; identifying what should and should not be in use, what is used and unused and then also actively discovering all of the software outside of centralized control… it all sounds beneficial, but potentially challenging to un-pick.
Modern ITAM & SAM solutions should provide the total visibility of your IT infrastructure in its entirety and in detail. They can also measure the usage of all software at all times, to identify that costly unused software. They can manage software licensing and even enforce access control policies with approved and denied software. The challenge then, is finding evidence of web apps through Shadow SaaS Discovery.
The Methods Used to Capture Shadow SaaS
There are 3 logical ways to discover SaaS applications in-use across an organisation, each with their relative pros and cons:
- Interrogating finance systems – this can help to logically identify who may be expensing the SaaS bills, providing an audit trail to follow, but it will not show you the users accessing web apps, the scale and nature of the problem, or where the data security risk ultimately lies.
- Using web-browser extensions (reading page data) – Shadow SaaS discovery tools using this method are notoriously difficult to implement, configure and maintain, but even more concerning are the significant potential security risks. Browser extensions are consistently maliciously targeted and could potentially contain not just web activity, but user names and password data.
- Secure agents on machines – this unique new approach is able to identify critical evidence of Shadow SaaS being accessed by users, without compromising your security. It can also solve the ‘visibility’ problem with IT infrastructure, including recognizing all on-premise software as well, and identifying unused software - all via a centralized ‘single source of the truth’.
A Strategic Approach to Knowing Software
‘You can’t manage what you can’t see’, and so discovering IT hardware is the critical first step that will make-or-break how effective the management processes can be, that rely on a foundation of solid ITAM data.
Strategically, having an agent-based Shadow SaaS Discovery capability that has its foundation in robust ITAM discovery and inventory of hardware infrastructure, can solve a number of problems in one.
It can provide full visibility of both approved and disallowed software everywhere - whether installed on devices or accessed as SaaS.
Agents will also measure software usage, so that unused software can be readily identified and the unnecessary cost and risk eliminated safely.
Finally, a centralized source of ITAM, SAM, SaaS and Shadow SaaS intelligence can be integrated to feed CI information into a CMDB, to build the required associations and understanding without the fear of gaps or missing detail, that could lead to unmanaged costs and security risk.
By Certero
Meet the Certero team at stand 260 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
MSP Show Speaker Q&A: Mark Copeman
Introducing Mark Copeman, director of Wingman MSP Marketing, who will be taking the to MSP Show stage to deliver the seminar 'How to build a marketing engine for your MSP'.
In the session, Mark will give attendees the instruction manual on how to build a marketing engine for their MSP business.
Find out more about Mark ahead of his seminar at the MSP show on 18 April at 12pm:
How did you get into the profession?
I began in 2010. I launched a business called Customer Thermometer, the world's first one click feedback tool. And whilst we aimed it at marketing agencies originally, we started to see all these MSPs signing. By the time I exited that business in 2018, we had nearly 500 MSPs using the service, which was extraordinary, and they still use it today which is wonderful.
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
We run an MSP marketing agency and are dedicated to helping MSPs start more conversations with prospects. And the thing I love most, is talking to MSPs around the English speaking world. It still blows my mind the way that we're able to work with companies around the globe. I love meeting people in different locations and hearing about their experiences as a business, and seeing how we can potentially help them.
That's what gets me out of bed every morning. I absolutely love what we do.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in this industry?
I think this industry is unique. I've never been part of an industry which is so collaborative. When I see competitive businesses in the same town or city helping each other out, I think it's extraordinary and completely brilliant. So, I would advise people starting out in this industry to go and seek help.
Talk to vendors about the sorts of things that they're doing and what the future holds. Talk to MSPs, join communities, like tech tribe and Reddit and immerse yourself in the industry. The more people you meet, the more helpful it's going to be to you. Having a network around you has never been more important.
What are the key points you'll be covering in your seminar?
I'll be focusing on how to create a marketing engine for your MSP business. And at the heart of that is typically the website, which is the bane of most people's lives.
We know that MSP owners are typically technical, they've come from a technical background and marketing sales is not their forte or something they enjoy doing. So my session will lay out some practical steps for people to evaluate what they're currently doing online, and how they can improve it when they get back to the office. There's so many different techniques that people can use to give themselves a better chance of leads coming through their website.
What are you looking forward to most at the MSP Show?
I am really looking forward to my session as well as meeting both new and old colleagues, whether in the vendor world or the MSP world.
The MSP Show is taking place on the 14-15 May 2025 at ExCeL London. Registration is free, you can book your free ticket here.
Keeping IT Support Personalised, Secure & Effective - 5 five key points for greater efficiencies & increased customer satisfaction
In recent years, the landscape of IT Help Desk has undergone a profound shift, with remote support emerging as critical for most organisations. As businesses increasingly rely on remote support to address over half of their support tickets, the demand for personalised, secure, and effective solutions has never been more pressing. IT support professionals are challenged to maintain high productivity while navigating a complex array of corporate and personal devices and delivering prompt, personalized assistance that inspires confidence and trust in end-users. As shown in a study by Splashtop, more than 70% of help desk tickets are associated with user error. Therefore, it is essential to leverage technology that quickly identifies, solves, and helps users learn from their errors. These daily challenges are combined with the long-term need to streamline workflows, consolidate tools, and ensure the highest security standards across the entire digital ecosystem.
To enable personal, effective, and secure remote support, IT leaders must prioritise solutions that deliver reliable and secure connections and allow for reduced touchpoints, shorter resolution times, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
To achieve these goals and turn remote support into a strategic component for growth, it is essential to adopt technology that delivers the best performance in 5 key IT Support areas:
Comprehensive platform support
The effectiveness of remote support software significantly depends on the breadth of platform support it offers. IT leaders should consider a solution that accommodates a wide array of platforms, virtual machines, and VDI, allowing for the standardization of support processes across diverse endpoints.
Productivity and management features
From practical file transfer capabilities and activity and connection logs to granular user/group/role-based permissions, a robust remote support solution should boast comprehensive features that facilitate seamless cooperation and enhance productivity.
Seamless Integration
Integration capabilities are paramount to providing a holistic view of support activities within the overarching IT infrastructure and fostering a unified approach to troubleshooting. Pre-built integrations with ITSM, CRM, and system management solutions ensure a cohesive support workflow that facilitates the automatic creation of tickets, updates incident statuses, and synchronizes crucial information.
Security, Data protection, and compliance
Service Desk can represent significant vulnerabilities, as technicians might sacrifice credential management best practices to resolve issues faster. Stringent security measures to safeguard against potential cyber threats, unauthorized access, and data breaches are non-negotiable, as is adherence to data protection regulations and industry compliance standards, such as PCI, HIPPA, ISO, GDPR, SOC2, FERPA, etc.
Augmented Reality capabilities
Augmented reality has the potential to revolutionize IT Support. AR enhances troubleshooting by enabling IT support technicians to overlay digital information onto physical objects. This allows them to guide users in real-time, reducing the need for on-site visits, minimizing downtime, and, most importantly, providing effective onboarding and training.
By Daniela Itro
Meet the Splashtop team at stand 270 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
Embracing the inevitable: How can IT be a facilitator and not the gatekeeper of AI
In early May 2023, electronics behemoth Samsung cracked down on the usage of GenAI tools by employees.
This was done across company-owned devices, covering computers, tablets, and phones, as well as non-company-owned devices running on internal networks. The ban covered everything from ChatGPT to Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard.
The reason?
A month earlier, a Samsung employee had pasted some confidential code into ChatGPT to test it for errors. Of course, the LLM used the proprietary data to train its language model.
The Economist Korea also reported as many as three distinct scenarios where various employees had leaked confidential info on ChatGPT – error check, code optimization, and meeting recording to note conversion.
Samsung immediately reduced the ChatGPT upload capacity to 1024 bytes per person. News reports also said the company wanted to build an internal AI chatbot to avoid such incidents.
Within a few weeks of the ban, the Korea Economic Daily reported that two of South Korea’s IT behemoths – Naver Corp and Samsung – had joined hands to develop a GenAI platform for corporate users. The goal was for the AI tool, which would be available in Korean, to be used by Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) division once it was developed.
With this partnership, Samsung would have secured an in-house AI tool that could help push the boundaries of productivity while preventing potential confidential information leaks. Naver will use this partnership to enter the global enterprise AI market.
Moral of the story?
Companies need to evolve to cater to the demands of the modern enterprise employee. With AI permeating every aspect of our lives, the workplace must be open to this possibility while considering its security aspects.
IT teams must be enablers, not gatekeepers, of AI in the workplace.
What is the state of AI usage in work spaces today?
If you maybe thought this was a one-off incident, you couldn’t be more mistaken.
We at Atomicwork recently conducted a survey on AI in IT. We asked our participants this question – Do IT end users (employees) use free AI tools for their work?
The numbers are rather telling.
75% of the participants we surveyed said they had. And you guessed it right, ChatGPT was the preferred platform. Also, here’s a breakdown of what they use it for:
- Creative Ideation or Problem Solving – 46%
- Email Drafting or Editing – 40%
- Content Creation or Editing – 35%
- Market Research – 29%
- Data Analysis and Synthesizing Insights – 29%
- Code generation and testing – 17%
(NOTE: The percentages don’t add up since multiple choices were allowed.)
What this means is that if you are in the IT team of a sizeable corporation, three out of four employees are using free AI tools with or without your knowledge.
Given this reality, what should IT teams do?
The role of IT in managing AI adoption
According to our survey, the IT team was the originator of AI adoption activities in nearly two-thirds of organizations (61%), with the C-suite accounting for one-quarter (24%). In organizations where the C-suite had originated the need, AI adoption had progressed less than those where the IT team had done this. This stat goes on to showcase how important the role of IT is when it comes to AI adoption/origination leadership.
Given the IT team’s strong pulse of employee requirements, they are best placed to decide on the AI in IT roadmap and its subsequent implementation. The survey also lists the top most stated benefits of AI adoption–data analytics and synthesizing insights (45%), chatbots for self-service adoption (38%), and improving employee experience and workflow automation and optimization (tied at 34%).
Now, given this context, where should IT teams start?
Step 1- Set guidelines for governance
The key to avoiding a Samsung-like incident is to first come up with guidelines and governance policies.
This comprehensive framework for AI tool usage within the organization should cover:
- Approval process: Define a transparent and straightforward process for evaluating and approving AI applications. This includes assessing the tool’s relevance to business needs, compatibility with existing systems, and adherence to ethical standards.
- Policy development: Develop specific policies outlining the acceptable use of AI tools. These policies should cover aspects like data handling, user privacy, and ethical considerations specific to AI. While developing the policy, the IT team must also consider the relevant data privacy laws to comply with.
- Audit and review: The IT team must implement regular audits of AI tools to ensure continuous compliance and assess these tools’ impact on business operations and data security.
Step 2- Invest in training and support
While developing guidelines and policy is the first step, drilling the point home with adequate training and support mechanisms is essential.
- User training: Conduct regular training sessions for end-users, focusing on the functionalities of AI tools, best practices, and the importance of data accuracy.
- Awareness programs: Create awareness around the ethical implications of AI, including biases in AI algorithms and the importance of maintaining data privacy.
- Support channels: Establish dedicated support channels where users can report issues, seek guidance, and provide feedback on AI tools.
Step 3- Ensure security and compliance
This is arguably the most important from an IT perspective. The IT team must establish clear protocols to manage the usage of AI tools.
- Security protocols: Implement robust security protocols for AI applications, including data encryption, access controls, and secure data storage practices.
- Regular monitoring: Continuously monitor AI tools for any security vulnerabilities or data breaches and take immediate corrective actions when necessary.
- Compliance checks: Regularly review AI tools to ensure they comply with evolving legal and regulatory standards.
Step 4- Encourage collaboration
Fostering a collaborative environment is critical to the success of AI in IT projects/tools.
- Feedback mechanisms: Create platforms where end-users can provide feedback on AI tools, which can be used for further improvements and customization.
- Cross-departmental teams: Form cross-departmental teams to discuss the deployment of AI tools, ensuring that these tools meet diverse departmental needs.
- User-centric design: Involve end-users in the design and testing phases of AI tool development to ensure that the tools are user-friendly and effectively meet user requirements.
In conclusion
It is paramount that enterprises allocate a good chunk of their IT budget towards AI in IT projects. These will act as an investment towards increasing the organization’s overall productivity.
According to our survey, over half (52%) of IT respondents stated that their organizations spend at least 5% of their IT budgets on AI, and ~19% of them said that this was more than 10%.
This indicates that a lot of organizations are seriously considering the implementation of AI at the enterprise level. AI is no longer about employees using ChatGPT; it has become a lot more serious, and enterprise-level actions need to be taken to use AI effectively to ensure long-term success.
To this end, the key to successful AI adoption lies in the partnership and communication between IT and business leaders. By working together, they can ensure that AI is used in a beneficial, secure, and compliant manner.
The future of work is undoubtedly AI-integrated, and proactive IT management is critical to navigating this future successfully.
Start 2024 with a deliberate AI strategy for your IT operations.
By Sajeesh Sahadevan, Atomicwork
Meet the Atomicwork team at stand 595 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.
How your service desk can provide tech support to unconnected devices
A technical problem, a software issue, a need for general assistance — these are a few common issues that become tickets for the service desk. The days of employees running down to the help desk, computer in hand, are largely behind us. Many employees are working from home. And with the rise of remote work, came the rise of remote support tickets. This has made remote access software one of the most common tools used by IT support technicians today.
The use of remote support software is not a new idea. Windows and Mac-based remote access tools have been deployed for decades, some more efficient and integrated than others. They allow remote technicians to look at the problem, the screen, and solve it in real time. But what happens when the ticket involves a non-traditional, non-computer-based support situation?
If the technician can’t directly take over a computer screen in need, what do they do? They need the right tools to support any use case. One of those tools is camera sharing. With camera sharing capabilities built into an IT remote support solution, service desks can tackle any ticket that enters their queue.
Use case: Home office
Employees often struggle with wired networks and multi-monitor or docking station setups. Remote camera sharing allows the service desk team to assist with the initial workplace setup, conduct home office surveys (as it is often required by law for workplace safety), and suggest best practices for the work-at-home colleague. With visual engagement tools, a wider range of home office support cases can be resolved digitally.
Use case: On-the-go
While working on-the-go, we may use various gadgets to support us, like wired or wireless headsets, power banks, and mobile hotspots. And getting these tools synced and ready to go can pose a challenge for end users. IT service desks can alleviate this challenge by delivering guidance for the traveler through the camera share feature of their remote support software.
Use case: On-premises infrastructure
For a hybrid-working world, many office spaces have transformed from day-to-day desks to flexible meeting spaces. If you don’t have the appropriate expertise on-site, it’s essential to be able to contact support for quick resolution. Through easy anytime connection and camera share, any potential points of failure, such as room AV systems, printers, routers, switches and cable management can be quickly solved.
Okay, but why not just FaceTime?
You might already have access to video communication through your UCaaS solution (unified communications as a service) or FaceTime and WhatsApp on personal devices. A common question is, “why can’t we just use FaceTime?” For the service desk and IT support teams, tools like FaceTime lack crucial attributes:
- They are not integrated into the service desk's workflows and ticket tracking.
- They often allow for private contact details to be exchanged and processed, not ideal for data and personal privacy.
- They do not provide the unified audit and traceability of activity that a truly integrated support tool does.
Embedded and integrated visual engagement software is a must-have module for support and customer service teams, where compliance and integrated security are important.
The solution
Traditional remote support solutions have been used for on-premises workstation support for decades. For example, remote desktop and VNC (Virtual Network Computing) or VPN (Virtual Private Networks) solutions have been standard for a long time.
But does your solution work for a variety of problem types? A new generation of cloud-based remote tools can change the remote support game for your service desk team. GoTo Resolve, for example, consolidates everything you need to support connected and non-connected devices efficiently. Teams will notice key performance improvements for first call resolution, average handling time, user satisfaction, reduction of escalations, and reduced site visits. What more do you need?
By GoTo
Meet the GoTo team at stand 220 at SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show, on 17-18th April 2024, ExCeL London. You can now register for your free ticket here.