AI service desks - key features and benefits

Every IT support team knows that an AI service desk is the key to reaching unprecedented levels of efficiency and quality.

At the same time, according to McKinsey, many of those working in customer care feel limited by their existing technology.

Choosing the right AI for IT service desks can help you overcome this challenge and maximize your team’s potential.

An AI service desk provides IT teams the ability to stop chasing ticket after ticket in a haphazard way. Instead, you can take control and lead your operations with data-backed confidence. 

In this article, we’ll explore 13 essential AI functions to elevate your service desk operations, and the good news? All of these are available in CoPilot, Atera’s IT service desk powered by AI.

What is an AI Service Desk?

An AI service desk is an advanced IT support system that leverages artificial intelligence to enhance the efficiency, accuracy, and responsiveness of IT service management. Unlike traditional service desks that rely heavily on manual processes and human intervention, AI service desks automate many routine tasks and provide intelligent assistance, allowing IT teams to focus on more complex issues.

Turn IT management from reactive to proactive with an AI service desk

An AI service desk is more than just technology. It requires a shift in mindset, from reactive to proactive. And predictive AI is your partner in this process.

1) Leverage predictive analytics

A central benefit of IT service desk automation is how much work it takes off your team’s hands, but the secret sauce is what you do with this time.

Thanks to predictive analytics, you can pinpoint challenges and risks in your service desk operations, such as recurring hardware problems or potential cyber attacks, and handle them proactively, rather than reactively. 

When issues do occur, this foresight means you can take action quickly and avoid escalation that leads to more serious problems.

2) Identify areas for improvement

Your AI service desk collects tons of data about IT operations and is capable of identifying hidden trends. For instance, predictive AI can detect an increased number of tickets in the mornings, or right before the holidays, so that IT department can get prepared in advance. These insights are a powerful tool to proactively strategize and carry out improvements in both your regular service and your AI self service offerings.

Set time-bound goals with action items and accountability reviews to ensure success.

Improve IT operations efficiency

Now that you’ve got a proactive mindset, let’s see how AI for service desk automation makes your IT operations much more efficient.

3) Automate ticket and call routing

A popular IT service desk automation feature is ticket and call routing. You can set rules that send the right customers to the right technician based on expertise, spoken languages, and more.

Take your automated service desk to the next level by prioritizing tickets according to urgency. Certain technical issues or customer populations (say, long term customers or those who repeatedly experience tech issues) can come first.

4) Summarize tickets automatically

We’ve all received those book-length tickets… or written them ourselves. Get your AI service desk to summarize the key points and customer sentiments, so you can resolve the issue faster.

5) Get instant issue resolution

According to a HubSpot survey, 60% of respondents said that getting quick responses and solutions is the top factor that drives repeat business.

AI for IT service desk automation resolves issues not just quickly but instantly, and then recommends suggestions for resolution. Fast response and resolution is the name of the game.

Some IT service desk automation platforms, like Atera’s CoPilot, let you easily create customer and context-specific scripts, and precise terminal commands. This means that many of the common or repeat IT ticketing issues are fixed on the spot with no intervention from the IT team.

Even better? Atera’s CoPilot resolves 50% of tier-1 tickets, like password resets and blue screen errors, before technicians even learn they exist.

6) Automate IT asset management

AI in service desks can also be used to manage your IT assets, significantly reducing manual errors and helping to streamline operations. For example, with AI in ITSM, you can automate the management of user access permissions and software updates.

Offer AI self service for IT customers

Service desk automation means there are more options for customers to serve themselves, reducing the workload of the IT team, and empowering customers to solve many IT issues independently.

7) Scale your knowledge base

A great AI self service for IT includes an abundant knowledge base that is easy to navigate. Use IT service desk automation to instantly generate tutorials based on ticket and call responses and pre-written scripts.

Verify these resources to show up during chatbot engagements, and also offer them automatically to IT agents who are looking for efficient resolution suggestions.

What to include in your knowledge base:

• FAQs
• Step-by-step troubleshooting guides
• Video demos
• Product hacks
• Glossaries

8) Develop your chatbot’s intelligence and select tone of voice

Your IT service desk automation and chatbot acts as an extension of your team, providing always-on assistance and resolution of AI tickets. Therefore, ensure your bot understands questions accurately and is able to detect issues and offer the right solutions. Feed it with knowledge base resources and natural language processing to achieve this.

9) Let customers choose how to communicate with your AI service desk

AI for service desks can mimic technician understanding and communication, at least to a point. Ensure that you provide AI self service options in both text and voice to support different customer needs, supporting automated interactions across channels.

Keep your AI service desk secure

IT service desk automation isn’t complete without ensuring it’s safe for customers to communicate with you. In fact, according to PwC’s Voice of the Consumer 2024 survey, protecting customer data is the number one way a company can build trust.

10) Use advanced security protocols

As you implement AI for IT service desk automation, also implement enhanced security protocols to ensure data privacy.

Atera’s automated service desk, for example, protects customer data from unauthorized access. Protection happens even when offering AI self service to customers looking to access or update their account.

Gain strategic insights from your AI service desk operations

Your AI service desk continuously analyzes your operations, customers, and technicians. It can collect and process data at a far greater rate and scale than humans. So make sure to take full advantage of this powerful capability.

11) Monitor technician performance

Your AI for IT service desk can give you lots of information on the people whose behavior you can impact most — your IT team. Use your AI service desk tool to gain an understanding of performance metrics such as:

• Response time
• Resolution time
• Bottlenecks in the system

Armed with this vital data, you can gradually scale what works, improve what doesn’t, and build your IT team’s skill set.

12) Analyze customer behavior and sentiment patterns

In addition to monitoring the performance of your IT agents, an AI service desk can track customer behavior patterns and changes in sentiment throughout the service delivery lifecycle. Discover what generates user satisfaction and successful IT ticket resolutions, and which actions and challenges lead to poor customer sentiment.

13) Discover recurring problems and detect anomalies

A well architected AI service desk can help you discover recurring problems that aren’t necessarily obvious or visible. Examples of anomalies in IT environments may include:

• Recurring issues or complaints
• Unusual login activity
• Deviations in hardware performance
• Unusual patterns in user behavior
• Unexpected service outages
• Security threats
• And more.

By detecting anomalies and repeat issues, an AI service desk empowers IT teams to handle these with minimum disruption and repercussions to IT operations and infrastructure.

All this and more with your very own CoPilot

Imagine each member of your IT team has the equivalent power of 10 technicians. This is what a truly sophisticated, AI-powered service desk can achieve.

As you drastically reduce time to resolution and improve customer satisfaction, your IT team is free to spend more time on the meaningful parts of their job. Rather than focusing on rote tasks, they can innovate, develop, and expand your IT capabilities and performance.

With CoPilot — the IT automation of the service desk function in Atera’s AI-IT management platform — you can access the 13 AI functions listed above, and so much more.

Atera CoPilot helps you:

• Troubleshoot IT issues quickly with real time device diagnostics, ticket summaries, generated responses, and proven AI recommendations for resolution.
• Expand your AI self service with automated knowledge base development, customer history understanding, and both voice and text chatbot communication.

If this is the kind of AI service desk you are looking for, then don’t delay. Go from reactive to proactive with Atera CoPilot. Start your free trial today.