Table of Contents
Key takeaways
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Two Roles: AI chatbots support end-users (virtual agents) and IT staff (virtual assistants), often called AI copilots.
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Smart Automation: They use NLP to understand requests and automate tasks via RPA or APIs.
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Better User Experience: Chatbots offer 24/7, fast, and easy-to-use support through familiar tools like Teams.
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Efficiency Gains: They reduce IT workloads, scale easily, cut costs, and provide data insights.
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Adoption Needs Strategy: Success depends on good data, system integration, and change management to build trust and usage.
What are AI chatbots for ITSM?
The IT industry is going “all-in” on artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for IT service management (ITSM), especially the opportunity to improve corporate IT support. Much of what you need to know about AI chatbots as an ITSM professional is distilled into this single “AI Chatbots for ITSM Explained” page. Let’s start with what AI chatbots are.
An AI chatbot is:
“A conversational AI agent designed to simulate human conversation through text or voice interactions.”
Where “Conversational AI is a subfield of AI focused on developing systems that can interact with humans using natural language, enabling them to hold conversations, answer questions, and complete tasks through voice or text. Chatbots and virtual assistants are examples of conversational AI applications.”
The two main AI chatbots for ITSM types
There are two different focuses for AI chatbots in ITSM. The first is helping end-users with information and actions. These AI chatbots are also often called virtual agents. The second is helping IT staff, again, with information and actions. These AI chatbots are often called virtual assistants.
Both types of AI chatbot might also be called Copilots:
“An AI Copilot is a predictive and generative AI-based assistant that provides guidance, support, and automation in various business contexts. AI copilots boost productivity and improve decision-making within various business sectors.”
The rest of this page focuses on AI chatbots for end-users.
How AI chatbots for end-users work
AI chatbots employ natural language processing (NLP) capabilities. This allows them to interpret end-user queries and conversations. AI chatbots can thus understand an end-user’s intent and extract relevant information such as error messages and keywords. They are also context-aware, meaning AI chatbots can maintain conversation context across multiple end-user exchanges to provide coherent responses.
AI chatbots then use existing information, knowledge, and data (from multiple sources) to address end-user queries and issues. They also use end-user information for personalization and will learn to provide higher-quality responses over time.
AI chatbots can execute tasks and invoke automation using robotic process automation (RPA) to perform repetitive tasks, like data entry or running scripts, or API integrations to execute commands or retrieve data by calling the APIs of connected systems or tools.
AI chatbots can be made available via various channels. For example, web portals, mobile apps, or collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams.
Common AI chatbot ITSM use cases include:
- Troubleshooting – this is guiding end-users through the steps required to fix common technical issues. Examples include handling Wi-Fi connectivity issues, setting up a new PC peripheral, or correcting software errors.
- Incident reporting – when an AI chatbot can’t resolve an end-user issue, it creates a related ITSM tool ticket for human attention and resolution.
- Resetting passwords and unlocking accounts – an AI chatbot can automate these tasks. This automation makes end-user life easier and reduces the IT service desk’s workload.
- Handling software requests – an AI chatbot can process end-user requests for new software or updates, check whether the requested software matches the end-user’s role, and automatically provision what’s needed.
- Monitoring IT infrastructure and providing notifications – this could be alerts to end-users related to system issues, updates, or scheduled maintenance that affects them.
The ITSM benefits of AI chatbots for end-users
AI chatbots allow IT organizations to access benefits across all three of: “better, faster, and cheaper.” There are also benefits for end-users.
Two key benefits of AI chatbots are streamlining IT services and improving user experiences, transitioning from manual processes to automated solutions that leverage AI capabilities. However, there are many more benefits for both end-users and the It organization.
The key AI chatbot benefits for end-users
- 24/7 availability of service and support—AI chatbots offer round-the-clock support to end-users, regardless of the IT service desk’s business hours.
- Quicker response and resolution times – AI chatbots are available 24/7 and don’t have queues for end-users to wait in. They can thus handle common queries and issues instantly, which reduces wait times (and their productivity loss) for end-users compared to traditional IT service desk methods such as phone and email.
- Ease of use – AI chatbots allow end-users to request help, explain their issues or needs, and engage in conversations using plain English or their local language rather than incurring technical jargon.
- Service quality consistency – AI chatbots provide end-users with uniform responses and a consistent level of service, avoiding any variability in support quality that may arise from dealing with different people whose capabilities might be influenced by various factors.
- Self-service enhancement – AI chatbots make IT support self-service capabilities more accessible. This includes the ease of accessing the right help and carefully guiding end-users through troubleshooting steps to resolve their issues.
- Integration with collaboration tools – AI chats integrate with business collaboration tools (such as Microsoft Teams) to offer end-users IT support capabilities from within their preferred working environment. Rather than interrupting their work by insisting they call the IT service desk or visit an IT self-service portal.
- Improved end-user experiences – the combination of the above benefits
The key AI chatbot benefits for the IT organization
- Improved IT staff efficiency – AI chatbots reduce the IT team workloads by tackling simple or repetitive end-user queries and requests. This allows IT personnel to focus on more complex and value-adding tasks.
- Scalability – AI chatbots can handle increased end-user query volumes without the need for a proportional increase in IT staff. This scalability can also handle business change impacts and seasonal peaks and troughs in support demand without the complexity of recruiting temporary IT staff.
- Cost reduction – AI chatbots offer a lower-cost alternative to human IT resources, enabling cost reductions for certain ITSM tasks.
- Better data-driven insights – AI chatbots gather and analyze interaction data. This helps to identify common issues and optimize ITSM processes.
- Improved service level agreement (SLA) compliance – the quicker resolutions possible through AI chatbots help IT organizations meet service level agreement targets more effectively.
- Better IT employee experiences – it’s not only end-users who receive better experiences. AI chatbots can help improve IT staff morale and productivity by minimizing the workload related to handling repetitive tasks.
The potential challenges and considerations with AI chatbots for ITSM
As with introducing any new technology, using AI chatbots for ITSM requires more than just implementing new software. There are three areas in particular where organizations need to be cautious:
- Ensuring data quality and AI governance – not only the necessity of high-quality data for effective AI chatbot performance but also early and continued oversight of AI chatbot performance.
- Integrating with existing systems – AI chatbots will deliver the greatest ITSM benefits when integrated with ITSM tools and processes and other business systems and tools.
- Encouraging end-user adoption – industry research shows that AI trust drives AI adoption, and AI adoption drives AI trust. To help with this, organizations should use proven organizational change management (OCM) tools and techniques to help drive end-user adoption of new AI chatbot capabilities.
