The deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is gaining traction across industries and functions including IT service management (ITSM) space.
More and more enterprises are looking to deploy AI given the technology’s promise to deliver consistent results, automate repeated functions, and speed up tasks. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates, worldwide revenues in the AI marketplace are expected to surpass $300 billion in 2024.
As IT service management witnesses the widespread adoption of AI and automation, IT service management will be transformed with the acceleration of the following key trends in the year 2023:
Service management to become an organizational capability
IT service management as a support function is going through a transformation with leaders looking at AI technology to not just support IT systems but to empower every other aspect of the business including human resources, facilities, finance, sales, and others. Employees’ need for automation is no longer limited to using AI-powered chatbots and AI tools to power and monitor IT. Instead in a remote and hybrid work environment, employees are looking to leverage AI to streamline their work and increase productivity internally.
The year 2023 will see greater adoption of intelligent automation to help the workforce across the hierarchy to make better decisions in less time, lower risks, and provide better risk assessment for every decision taken.
Organisations at large will use technologies such as AI, machine learning, augmented-virtual reality, and data analytics to simplify and augment human decision-making. For example, professionals will use AI tools to correlate data to understand factors for IT service failures or disjointed customer experience and retention issues.
Optimising employee productivity and business outcomes
AI is going to have a far-reaching impact on the people management approach within ITSM practice.
In the post-pandemic world consumer that is client satisfaction and expectations have undergone significant changes. Leaders increasingly recognise that happy employees will make for happy customers. This recognition is leading organisations to shift their traditional focus on services and their management to optimising employee productivity and business outcomes.
This growing recognition of improving employee experience is going to influence and change the skill set of ITSM professionals. Going forward, the soft skills of service management professionals will be in greater focus. They need to be measured more precisely to test their suitability and facilitate upskilling.
In the new digital age, management as a capability is going to be in greater focus for leaders more than ever. The year ahead will therefore see more organisations establishing an experience management office (XMO). There is going to be a greater organisational and leadership focus on measuring experience against defined targets in a world powered by AI.
Further, there is going to be a sharper focus on using AI technologies to orchestrate and improve the stakeholder experience lifecycle, to maximise mutually beneficial and sustainable outcomes.
Integrated use of data across the organisation
It’s been long that organisations have recognised the power of data with data being the new oil in the 21st century.
Additions of new capabilities with the deployment of AI make data a more powerful tool to assess and improve performance in the ITSM domain. AI tools together with data are going to help leader’s power growth more vigorously through hyper-automation, experience management, and value mapping.
Bridging the knowledge gap with automation and documentation
Over the next year, more and more organisations will deploy AI and machine learning technologies to capture and document key developments and innovations covering critical functions across teams.
AI-powered bots will be used to track and compile tests and results for various applications. Also, AI will provide leaders and managers insights into how particular challenges were fixed during the product-service lifecycle. Employees will have access to detailed incident records and logs giving them a ringside view of knowledge required to fix future challenges and bottlenecks in IT infrastructure or other network and software-related issues.
Enhancing problem management practices with automated resolution
Advances in big data and analytics have made AI super powerful and efficient. AI and automation in the coming years are going to be leveraged by leaders for improved and proactive problem management and automated resolution. Organisations will strengthen their IT infrastructure and network with AI by proactively detecting abnormal behaviour across multiple IT systems. Systems’ capability to alert IT staff of potential glitches and disruptions will help prevent network breakdowns through preventive maintenance.
Guarding against cyberattacks with AI-powered automation tools
AI-powered automation tools are finding a widespread use case for organisations to strengthen their cybersecurity and safeguard their network and machines from phishing and other virus attacks. Advanced automation tools can help IT teams prevent, detect, and manage cyberattacks more efficiently. AI-powered automation tools can secure complex computing systems against identity and data theft from suspicious sources. The article is based on views shared by industry leaders and experts at the Symphony AI Summit. The article is based on views shared by industry leaders and experts at the Symphony AI Summit.
(The author is Mr. Satyen Vyas, CEO, Symphony SummitAI and the views expressed in this article are his own)
