Will AI Replace The Need For Human IT Support

One of AI’s current capabilities is that routine and repetitive tasks can be passed off to it to follow a set process to perform things like password resets or performing system backups outside of normal working hours. This can then free up the human element of the support desk for other activities.

System monitoring is a time-consuming task that is often prone to being overlooked. It’s impractical for individuals to manually monitor systems around the clock by constantly watching data or readouts, as this approach inevitably leads to missed issues. However AI could be tasked with watching for set occurrences to occur and alert a human to deal with things when they are reported. AI can be used to monitor systems for performance issues, security breaches, and other anomalies, often being able to resolve issues without the need for human intervention. AI can be tasked with these actions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without the need for rest or recuperation.

A study by Forrester Research found that AI-driven monitoring tools can reduce system downtime by up to 40% by quickly identifying and addressing performance issues.

I am sure we have all come across Chatbots and Virtual Assistants via telephone, email and web pages. These can handle a large volume of basic inquiries, provide information, provide users with step-by-step troubleshooting guides for common issues, and escalate more complex issues to human technicians.

Additionally AI can and is being used by some organisations to streamline the triage and ticketing process, prioritize issues based on severity, and even suggest solutions to technicians.

When supporting users and systems there will always be the unique issues that occur where currently human interaction, judgement and problem solving is required. AI lacks the ability to think outside the box and apply judgment to resolve these occurrences.

With many working environments, system integration can be complex and issues involving the integration of multiple systems often require a deep understanding of the specific environments and configurations that AI cannot decipher on its own and so again human intervention would regularly be needed.

When communicating with an IT Support desk a human can provide empathy, reassurance, and effective communication, which is particularly important in high-stress situations. Additionally humans are better at understanding the nuances of user needs and can offer tailored training and guidance whilst dealing with support calls and users.

Adaptability is a key skill for any support desk technician and as new technologies and systems are developed, human experts are needed to understand, implement, and support these innovations. Microsoft Azure’s AI services are regularly updated to accommodate new technologies and systems, but integrating these technologies often requires human expertise. AI tools need to be properly configured and tailored to meet the specific needs of an organization, a process that AI alone cannot handle. This is because AI does not inherently possess the necessary skills for such adaptations and would require extensive reprogramming and remapping whenever new systems or technologies are introduced.

With unforeseen issues, AI can struggle when a problem falls outside of the data it was trained on. Constant learning, training and reprogramming would need to be built in to give an AI system a chance at being able to deal with new and unusual requests.