How to Leverage AI and Automation in IT Service Desks

Much has been written about how artificial intelligence (AI) is currently transforming corporate IT service management (ITSM) capabilities. This includes IT support where there are many opportunities to leverage AI capabilities on your IT service desk, or AI service desk as some people might call it. This blog looks at how your organization can leverage AI and automation in its IT service desk, starting with some scene setting on service desk automation.

Automation tools for service desks

ITSM tools have long provided IT service desks with automation capabilities. For example, the use of keyword analysis for automated incident and service request ticket routing. Or the workflow automation capabilities that have long provided the process-enabling backbone of ITSM tools.

However, AI capabilities offer a far more complete and better solution for ticket triage and other service desk automation opportunities. Some might call these AI service desk tools, but this name shouldn’t divert your IT service desk capabilities from the point of IT support. It’s there to help people return to optimal productivity in the event of an IT incident or service request need. The AI is an enabler, albeit a valuable enabler, rather than something that defines the service desk.

Your users want faster support. Your team wants fewer tickets. AI and automation make both happen. Here's how. #servicedesk #AI Share on X

AI in IT service desks – a brief history

AI use in IT service desks is growing rapidly after a relatively slow start. AI-powered service desk automation was first a hot topic at ITSM industry conferences nearly a decade ago. Then, after an initial bout of some ITSM tool vendors starting to add what can be considered “traditional”-AI capabilities (that leveraged machine learning and natural language processing (NLP)) to help IT service desks at the tail end of the global pandemic, the success of ChatGPT in 2023 brought the IT support opportunities of generative AI (GenAI) capabilities to the fore.

In 2025, attention has turned to Agentic AI, which offers your IT operations AI solutions with the following:

• Autonomy
• Adaptability
• Proactivity
• Decision-making capabilities.

More about Agentic AI can be read in this blog.

How does AI-driven IT support help?

The capabilities offered through AI-powered service desk automation provide your IT support team with new ways of working that are “better, faster, and cheaper” than the status quo. The many benefits include:

• Better IT support services and end-user experiences
• 24/7 IT support availability
• Improved efficiency in IT issue resolution and service request provisioning
• Consistent expertise and knowledge availability across IT support
• Cost reductions on various fronts – for example, reducing operational costs and proactive maintenance and timely issue resolution preventing costly service failures
• Easier scalability of IT support provision.

What do intelligent service desk solutions include?

Intelligent service desk automation includes AI-powered capabilities that help with both the “heavy lifting” of IT support (what many people think of as “service desk automation”) and the “heavy thinking.” With the latter the use of AI to automatically create better insights into service desk performance and improvements.

An AI service desk tool (or ITSM tool) will usually include the following:

• AI-powered virtual support agents – this AI capability provides your end-users instant, 24/7 access to IT support, guiding them through step-by-step troubleshooting and automating common resolutions.
• AI-powered virtual assistants – this AI capability provides your service desk agents with real-time, contextual recommendations to help them resolve tickets faster and one-click automation capabilities for actions like server reboots and application restarts.
• Intelligent workflow automation – one of the most prominent examples is intelligent ticket classification and automated resolution. The technology instantly classifies your service desk’s incoming incidents and service requests based on patterns and past resolutions and routine issues that can be resolved without human intervention.
• AI-powered issue identification and predictive maintenance – AI capabilities that continuously monitor your IT infrastructure (including end-user devices) to detect anomalies before they cause operational disruptions.
• AI-assisted ticket summarization – where key ticket details are extracted for faster human review. This enhances understanding and reporting.
• AI-driven communications and reporting – AI capabilities automatically draft major incident notifications and end-user updates. They also deliver real-time performance dashboards to staff of all levels with recommendations for improvement.
• AI-driven knowledge management – AI capabilities automate knowledge creation, retrieval, and optimization.
• Predictive analytics – AI capabilities forecast operational and service trends to identify potential IT failures in what is more proactive IT management.
• AI-enabled “swarming” – AI capabilities facilitate smarter IT collaboration on incidents and problems by identifying the best experts for issue resolution. It elevates traditional swarming models by considering IT staff skill sets, experience, and real-time availability.

AI + automation = faster resolutions, happier users, and less stress for IT teams. Here's how to make it happen. #servicedesk #ITSM Share on X

Machine learning in IT support

A final point to note about AI use in IT service desks (or AI service desks, if you prefer) is that machine learning still plays its part. While the terms “GenAI” and now “Agentic AI” are more commonly used to describe the AI opportunities for IT service desks, these AI “flavors” still involve machine learning.

Whether it’s GenAI learning by training on large datasets to recognize patterns and generate human-like text (or images or code). Or Agentic AI using machine learning for autonomous data analysis, decision-making, and task execution without human intervention. It’s very much a case of “machine learning is dead; long live machine learning’s use by the latest AI technologies.”To learn more about the opportunities to leverage AI and automation in your IT service desk, whether you want to call it an AI service desk or not, check out our AI Agent Builder.