Agentic AI’s Relevance and Importance to ITSM

In the last few years, the relevance and importance of artificial intelligence (AI) to IT service management (ITSM) capabilities have changed rapidly. Undoubtedly, AI is the most important change of the last two decades and it has gained mainstream traction like no other ITSM trend before it. Now, advances in AI technologies have brought about the latest opportunities for ITSM with what is called “Agentic AI.”

“Not another flavor of AI,” you might be thinking, especially if your organization is still coming to terms with generative AI (GenAI). Don’t worry. To help, this blog discusses what Agentic AI is, why it is important, and how it is changing corporate ITSM capabilities for the better.

Agentic AI explained

An elevator pitch is that:

“It’s an autonomous, goal-driven AI that can act independently and adapt to new information when completing tasks and making decisions.”

But what does the opportunity of Agentic AI mean for your ITSM capabilities? And how does Agentic AI differ from traditional AI? Let’s begin with that distinction.

How Agentic AI differs from traditional AI

Agentic AI brings autonomy, adaptability, and proactivity, significantly contrasting to traditional AI – where rule-based automation and machine learning models require human supervision. So, while traditional AI excels at specific, rule-based tasks, Agentic AI is designed to operate independently, learn continuously, and handle complex, dynamic environments. These qualities make Agentic AI a great fit for ITSM and IT operations’ need for proactive problem-solving and autonomous decision-making.

Digging deeper into the key characteristics of Agentic AI, it offers your IT operations an AI solution with:

• Autonomy – operating with minimal human intervention
• Adaptability – learning and improving over time using machine learning models
• Proactivity – predicting and resolving issues before they escalate
• Decision-making capabilities – using contextual understanding to execute tasks intelligently.

The key benefits of Agentic AI in ITSM and example use cases

Like earlier AI innovations , Agentic AI offers a spectrum of benefits to IT operations. But what sets it apart is how these advantages translate directly into practical, real-world ITSM improvements. Below are some key benefits, paired with specific examples to bring them to life:

• Improved end-user experiences – Agentic AI delivers more personalized, timely, and efficient IT services to end-users, improving response times and resolution rates. For example, proactive issue detection where Agentic AI monitors system health in real-time. It detects unusual patterns and automatically resolves issues before end-users know there are issues.
•  Greater IT staff efficiency and productivity – Agentic AI reduces the manual effort in IT service delivery and support, automating repetitive tasks and streamlining IT operations. For example, AI-driven knowledge management where the AI learns from past incidents to update the knowledge base and provides recommendations (as well as real-time diagnostic insights) that speed up IT support tasks.
• Better resource utilization – automation means that IT staff can focus on higher-value-adding work rather than routine tasks. Agentic AI can also better manage IT resources based on current and predicted demand. For example, Agentic AI can continuously analyze system usage patterns, and when demand spikes, it automatically scales up resources to help ensure optimal performance. During low-demand periods, it auto-scales down resources to avoid unnecessary costs.
• The ability to handle large data sets and complexity – ITSM tools and other IT management systems generate vast amounts of data. Unlike human IT staff, Agentic AI can make immediate sense of this data. For example, Agentic AI can continuously monitor terabytes of system logs to detect anomalies and flag (and often address) potential incidents before they affect business operations.
• Better decision-making – Agentic AI leverages real-time data and predictive analytics to make informed decisions. For example, Agentic AI can analyze historical IT change failures and their business impact to predict the likelihood of success with planned IT changes.
• Ease of scalability – Agentic AI capabilities allow your organization to quickly scale IT operations to reflect changing needs. For example, Agentic AI can power predictive IT infrastructure scaling – forecasting future IT infrastructure needs based on business growth trends, historical data, and predictive analytics.
• Cost reductions – Agentic AI capabilities reduce operational IT costs by minimizing human intervention and errors. For example, automating routine IT support tasks decreases the (human) workload of service desk teams and the associated costs.

Agentic ITSM with SysAid

We believe that Agentic AI isn’t just about intelligent ITSM. Instead, it’s empowered to act autonomously, automate complex workflows, and provide advanced insights that will redefine your organization’s ITSM capabilities.

SysAid AI Builder Studio is designed to facilitate this. It’s a new customer platform for creating and customizing AI actions using natural language. It builds on our development of the SysAid Copilot, which integrates large language models (LLM), your data sources, and a conversational interface that serves all types of users. We then put control in your hands to monitor and fine-tune AI responses, streamline daily routines, offer insights and solutions, and free people from manual, repetitive tasks. Now, we’re giving you the tools to manage and create new AI capabilities without coding.

SysAid AI Builder Studio allows your IT teams to create AI Agents that automate their daily tasks. These AI Agents are instantly accessible for both IT agents and end users through the SysAid AI Chatbots, which is powered by the SysAid Copilot. With Agentic AI, your teams get a toolset of building blocks – code snippets, actions, and integrations – that they and the AI can use to automate tasks to save time and deliver better service experiences.

The SysAid AI Builder Studio is the engine behind this, where each task agents want to automate – like setting up a new user or upgrading an asset – is built as an action Not only can these actions be built by anyone, but you can instantly check that the AI Agent works as expected via a single-click test. There’s also a library of out-of-the-box AI Agents that you can activate instantly or modify – all using natural language.

Importantly, the SysAid AI Builder Studio building blocks aren’t limited to IT use. Departments across your organization – from Human Resources (HR) to Finance – can all use them to work together, creating a seamless, efficient workflow.

An example of the SysAid AI Builder Studio in action

Consider actioning a ticket to add a new employee to Azure Active Directory during your company onboarding process. Instead of spending time on repetitive manual steps, your IT staff can build an AI action to automate it.

If they ask the SysAid AI Chatbot for Agents to add a new employee to Azure Active Directory, it will say it can’t (yet) and suggest using the SysAid AI Builder Studio. On an affirmative response, the chatbot transitions into a “builder” mode that walks them through the required steps. It understands their request to add a new employee to Azure Active Directory and automatically generates the new action block, “Add New Employee to Azure Active Directory.”

With the Builder, they can run a quick test to check if the action works as expected, adding a mock user to the right groups in Azure Active Directory and ensuring everything is set up properly. Once the test runs successfully, they save the action block and return to the ticket.

There’s now no need to access Azure Active Directory; they simply ask the chatbot to add the new employee to Azure Active Directory. The chatbot confirms the details and, within seconds, completes the task. It makes the experience better (and faster) for everyone.

If you want to learn more about the opportunities of Agentic AI and how SysAid AI Builder Studio helps, see here.