GenAI for ITSM Saves Money, But the Real Benefits Are Far More Valuable

Generative AI (GenAI) capabilities are transforming IT service management (ITSM) practices and tools – automating routine tasks, reducing operational costs, and enhancing service efficiency. All three of these benefits often have a financial bias, though, with ITSM leadership driven to reduce the costs of IT service delivery and support – potentially as part of a business-wide strategy to reduce operational costs.

These GenAI benefits are available, with late-2023 Gartner research, a survey of 822 business leaders, finding that respondents reported a 15.8% revenue increase, 15.2% cost savings, and 22.6% productivity improvement with GenAI on average.

However, while GenAI-delivered cost savings are a significant benefit, the true value of its adoption lies in the first two elements of “better, faster, cheaper.” Because GenAI capabilities offer far more than cost savings, including strategic IT improvements, superior end-user experiences, increased productivity, service quality improvements, service innovations, and better business outcomes.

#GenAI isn't just about cost savings says @Joe_the_IT_Guy. Here he shares other examples of how GenAI offers potentially more important non-financial benefits. #ITSM #ServiceDesk #AI Share on X

GenAI cost reduction is still a great benefit of GenAI

While this blog looks at more than cost reduction, it’s worth quickly covering the cost-related benefits at a high level. For example, cost efficiency can be achieved through automation, where GenAI automates repetitive ITSM tasks.

Another example is streamlined processes, where GenAI optimizes workflow automation by eliminating bottlenecks and improving process efficiency. For instance, GenAI chatbots handling Level 1 support queries to reduce the volume of tickets hitting the IT service desk. Plus, this delivers IT support scalability as well as cost reductions.

However, it’s important to look beyond these and other cost savings, with the following examples of how GenAI offers potentially more important non-financial benefits.

Enhancing IT service quality and experiences

A primary GenAI capability for ITSM is proactive incident management (which is also called predictive analytics), where GenAI predicts potential issues before they occur. This helps prevent unplanned downtime, offering your organization a more stable and reliable IT environment and better employee or end-user experiences.

While GenAI chatbots might be considered cost-reducers, they also offer better experiences – reducing the potential friction in service and support interactions by providing instant solutions and seamless transitions between the self-service and human support channels. For example, an end-user might start their support request via a chatbot, where the GenAI gathers preliminary information before escalating the end-user to one of your human agents for further diagnosis and resolution.

'While GenAI chatbots might be considered cost-reducers, they also offer better experiences' - @Joe_the_IT_Guy #GenAI #Chatbots #ITSM #ServiceDesk Share on X

Finally, GenAI capabilities can offer personalized support, which leverages what’s known about your end-users to provide better IT support experiences. For example, when the GenAI knows that your end-user is technically competent but in a role that requires 100% technology availability at certain times of the month, it might offer different priorities and solutions dependent on the immediate need. The aim being to deliver both faster resolutions and improved IT support experiences.

Driving strategic business value

GenAI can analyze vast amounts of data, providing ITSM teams with actionable and strategic insights. For example, GenAI-driven analytics can identify underperforming service delivery areas and recommend changes to optimize service performance and quality.

ITSM teams can also experiment with new service delivery models and strategies without impacting ongoing operations. For example, predicting the impact of service-level changes on costs, customer satisfaction, and other areas allows IT to ascertain whether the proposed change will be advantageous without first making the change.

Did you know GenAI-driven analytics can identify underperforming service delivery areas and recommend changes to optimize service performance and quality? #GenAI #ITSM #ServiceDesk Share on X

Finally, GenAI helps break down functional silos by integrating IT’s activities with other business functions such as human resources (HR), finance, legal, and facilities management. This can be from an IT perspective or as part of an enterprise service management (ESM) approach. For example, for employee onboarding, GenAI-powered service management platforms enable automated workflows that span multiple business functions, improving cross-functional communication and efficiency to deliver better outcomes.

Agent empowerment

While it’s easy to see the automation GenAI brings, it’s essential not to overlook the human outcomes the efficiency brings. When GenAI automates mundane and repetitive manual tasks, it allows IT staff to focus on other things, such as strategic initiatives, innovation, and complex problem-solving.

But GenAI doesn’t just offer replacement-type opportunities. It also augments IT staff capabilities, making them better versions of themselves and able to undertake far more than they could without GenAI (and more quickly). For example, an end-user issue might relate to a server. Once diagnosed, GenAI suggests rebooting the server and offers a single-click reboot facility. This means your service desk agent can do so (to fix the end-user issue) without needing to know any technical details of initiating a server reboot.

Improved end-user productivity

While improving IT operations is important, the better business outcomes this produces are more so. For example, automating ticket triage speeds up ticket resolution, but this is the “internal to IT” view. The impact on your end-users and business operations can be more significant, with the automation-based time savings resulting in improved end-user productivity. This is because less time is lost while the end-user cannot work productively due to their IT issue.

'While it’s easy to see the automation GenAI brings, it’s essential not to overlook the human outcomes the efficiency brings.' - @Joe_the_IT_Guy #ITSM #ServiceDesk #GenAI Share on X

GenAI also helps with end-user productivity through insights. It can identify and suggest improvements to IT processes and services. For example, GenAI might highlight high bounced ticket levels, explain why this is happening, and recommend what’s needed to rectify the situation. Such that improvements can be made that not only reduce wasted service desk agent activity but also speed up issue resolution and increase your end-users’ productivity.

The cost savings offered by GenAI are only the “tip of the ITSM improvement iceberg.” To learn more about the real benefits of GenAI for ITSM, check out this blog post: How Does AI in ITSM Enhance Service Management?