Support | 4 min read

The Role of AI in IT Support

Written by Peter Niebler

09/13/2023

According to a Forbes survey, over half of business owners use artificial intelligence (AI) for cybersecurity and fraud management. The same survey also indicated that over 40 percent of the respondents were concerned about an over-dependence on technology due to AI use.

Since the public release of ChatGPT-3 in late 2022, the use of AI in business has been a hot topic.

More and more businesses are looking into new AI-powered technologies to assist and streamline their operations. In addition to cybersecurity and fraud management, AI has been widely adopted in applications for:

Customer care management
Personal digital assistants
Inventory management
Content production
Supply chain operations
Talent recruitment
Audience segmentation
...and more

Let’s take a deeper dive into how AI technology plays a role in IT support.

How AI is Revolutionizing IT Support Services

AI is now front and center in many businesses' customer-facing areas. That’s one major reason we need to maintain a healthy understanding of this technology.

AI-powered chatbots on company websites are becoming more commonplace. High-quality conversational AI for customer service is increasingly prevalent. Many customer service teams are handing over the reins to AI to handle customer requests. Humans may need to step in for more complex issues, but a lot of the frequent and basic customer queries are being handled by AI.

Virtual assistants and predictive analytics are also learning from your keystrokes to give you a better, more targeted user experience. The role of a living, breathing support agent is diminishing in customer service interactions. With natural language processing in AI, such support agents often aren’t needed. In a lot of ways, that’s a good thing, allowing for round-the-clock support without making people work the graveyard shift.

Even IT help desks have enrolled the assistance of AI-powered applications. These virtual assistants are commonly used to answer frequently asked questions or determine the scope of larger problems as they are reported.

AI is great at predicting responses, organizing data and managing projects. These skills are key in gathering the information necessary to tee up help desk support tickets for your human support team. Let AI conduct some of the more tedious, repetitive tasks.

But support tickets and customer service are just the beginning. As noted earlier, cybersecurity and fraud management at many businesses are increasingly becoming AI-powered. This technology can monitor activity 24/7 for anomalies in the data or patterns that indicate the possibility of nefarious behavior.

Cybersecurity with a Side of AI

Cybersecurity is evolving as organizations are trading in their traditional antivirus software for more comprehensive and proactive Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) AI-powered solutions.

EDR uses AI-trained behavior analytics to search for irregular activity patterns in real time. If odd patterns are found, this may be a sign that a threat actor has breached the system and is attempting to move across the network or elevate their permissions.

If a cybersecurity threat is identified, the EDR will isolate the affected endpoint, terminate suspicious processes and, if applicable, deploy automated tools to remove the threats identified by the scan.

EDR also detects and prevents advanced cyberattack methods including fileless, zero-days and ransomware. Such detection is critical in avoiding costly, crippling cybersecurity incidents.

How AI is Empowering Business

The world of a CIO has been a bit stormy in recent years. It isn’t easy to mitigate risks while at the same time forging ahead in pursuit of new growth opportunities. But with a well-crafted strategy and the adoption of AI-powered solutions, businesses are better positioned than ever. They’re more empowered to deliver value with their goods and services at an even faster pace.

In fact, AI-powered solutions such as machine learning and large language models are being combined with data, analytics and automation in unique and innovative ways. All aspects of business are expected to adopt AI in some form within the coming years.

However, private investment in AI-powered solutions is leading in these five industries:

Medical and healthcare
Data management, processing and cloud
Fintech
Cybersecurity and data protection
Retail

AI is poised to help businesses reach new heights. But we caution that you be aware of how your data may also be used to teach the AI or shared with others. Read all user documentation before allowing access to any of your data.

In addition, we suggest creating an AI data policy for your organization. It’s also important to consider restricting access to AI-powered apps. Wait until a member of your IT team can evaluate their risk potential.

The Future of AI in Business

Three out of four c-suite executives believe that if they don’t scale artificial intelligence in the next five years, they risk going out of business entirely.

Change is hard. But a strong foundation and knowledge base is needed to protect a business from threat actors while enhancing existing capabilities and encouraging the organization to invest in new initiatives that could help reach goals.

Current AI solutions require human-machine collaboration to function. Therefore, today’s AI is viewed as an extension of human capabilities. In the future this may change, but a defined timeline of AI evolution is not known. Meanwhile, it’s vital to stay in step with AI advancements to see how you can work them in and not fall behind.

Searching for a Strategic Partner?

Serving customers well is crucial to your company’s survival. Elevate your approach to Technology Management. Partner with Elevity and we’ll show you how a proactive and strategic approach to technology, support and security is a critical tool for business growth.

Our comprehensive Technology Management and integrated co-managed services are geared toward growing organizations of all sizes in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Your success is our success.

Want to learn more about how to streamline and optimize your IT help desk? Download your free copy of our checklist, called Creating a Help Desk: 10 Best Practices. This checklist lays out important considerations and goes over each one in detail to paint a picture of what a successful help desk needs. Just click the link below to access your copy today!