There is something a little odd happening in many companies right now when it comes to AI technologies.
We can use the example of a typical employee in a large corporation. In the morning over breakfast, AI technologies power the facial recognition feature that unlocks her phone. A different AI-powered algorithm then decides what she sees as she scrolls through LinkedIn, and yet another one gives her recommendations about what to watch later in the evening when she powers up her Netflix app.
AI technologies in maps help her avoid traffic on her way to work, and AI-powered driver-assist features in her car help keep her safe during the journey. At her desk, AI helps her find the information she needs on Google, while a different AI tool helps correct the spelling of an email she sends to a colleague.
Then she encounters an IT issue, so she creates a support ticket and goes off to get a cup of coffee, hoping someone on the IT team gets back to her sooner rather than later.
Transforming Endpoint Management With AI
AI is all around us, enriching our lives, improving our workplaces, and helping businesses improve. It is a tool that should also be used by enterprises to enhance endpoint management. And here’s the thing – the technology to do this exists, and it has been proven in corporations with thousands of users. How does AI make endpoint management easier? Here are the three main areas:
Self-Help IT Support
The scenario described above is a great place to start. The ideal solution for the employee in question would have been not to have encountered the problem at all. Getting immediate, real-time help is the next best thing. AI can achieve both.
AI can monitor endpoints in your organization, automatically applying known fixes when it identifies an issue. These fixes can be applied before endpoint users even know the problem exists. Not all problems can be fixed automatically, and there might be other types of IT support that users need. That’s where AI-powered self-help steps in.
We can use our Access Symphony product as an example here, as it uses AI to provide self-help IT support to users. The process starts with the user asking a question or describing their problem. They can do this using the Symphony Assistant app, accessing Symphony Assistant from MS Teams, or via the Symphony web portal.
Natural language processing algorithms understand what the user is asking, enabling the system to identify potential solutions. The AI technology can then either apply the fix automatically or walk the user through what they need to do to resolve the issue or complete the task. All this is going on while your IT resources are working on other things.
This brings obvious benefits to the IT function in your business as skilled technical staff no longer need to spend time dealing with repetitive and straightforward support tickets. There is also a benefit to the business overall as IT resources can spend more of their time on value-adding tasks.
The benefits to users are just as important, however, including the benefits to employees. Employee experience is a big issue in many companies as it can impact everything from productivity to staff retention rates. Self-help IT support services powered by AI technologies significantly improve the employee experience as staff get solutions in real-time, i.e., when they need them most.
Onboarding
Onboarding is a major challenge for IT departments in a range of organizations. The priority is to get new employees the tools and equipment they need as soon as possible, as they won’t be able to get fully started in the role until this process is complete. For IT personnel, this largely endpoint process is not only time-consuming and distracting but also highly repetitive.
The latter point makes onboarding new employees the perfect fit for AI technologies. AI tools can provide new employees with the resources they need, as well as walking them through all the required setup processes.
Self-help IT support, as mentioned in the section above, also comes into play here as any queries new employees have can be answered and/or resolved automatically and in real-time, instead of having to wait for the IT department to respond to a support ticket.
Application Monitoring
AI-powered tools are better than people at collecting, analyzing, and understanding endpoint data. As a result, AI can significantly enhance application monitoring in large organizations.
With advanced application monitoring tools, you can see meaningful statistics on the apps that are being used and how people are using them.
AI-powered application monitoring also helps improve the app and device landscape in your enterprise by uncovering bottlenecks that reduce productivity, as well as identifying issues and anomalies that are hampering performance.
Access Symphony is another good example here, as Symphony Agent automatically collects data from endpoints to understand and predict issues such as hardware failures, as well as to take preventative action and/or notify IT staff.
Keeping it Real
Using AI to improve endpoint management isn’t about replacing your IT department with software applications and robots – not even close. Your IT resources will still be required to work on the more complex problems, plus they can spend more of their time improving and optimizing your IT infrastructure.
Using AI to make endpoint management easier is instead about making IT support and administrative processes more efficient to improve the employee experience, enhance productivity, and empower data-driven decision-making.
