Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI

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Introduction

SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) uses both Traditional AI and Generative AI:

Traditional AI (AI) is used in the Service Portal to suggest the best corresponding knowledge base articles and service catalog items for end users based on the keyword(s) typed into the search bar or during the creation of a new ticket.

Generative AI (GenAI) can be used in multiple ways. One example is providing agents with information in incident tickets such as suggested solutions, draft responses, and drafts of ticket summaries.

GenAI searches within your existing tickets to generate suggestions. For ESM customers it searches only within the specific service provider's tickets. All GenAI suggestions are identified by the Generated by AI icon.

Benefits for service portal users

The AI icon indicates that suggestions are provided by the AI tool working in the background through machine learning.

As AI suggests knowledge base articles and service catalog items during the creation of a new incident, your end- users see options that can steer them in the right direction.

The Virtual agent uses AI to help service portal requesters quickly resolve issues without involving a service desk agent. The Virtual Agent mimics human interaction, while it learns and adapts through smart conversation. It understands the user’s language, asks additional questions to gain context, responds to user queries in real-time, and provides offers a hand-off to a human service desk agent when needed. See Virtual Agent.

Benefits for agents and IT

Both agents and your IT department can benefit from SWSD's use of AI.

How agents can benefit

For agents, AI helps with the automatic routing and classification of incoming incidents, reducing the impact of ticket misclassification and human error. It also offers smart suggestions agents can leverage when working on a ticket. Smart suggestions are made based on keyword matching from historical analysis of similar issues—those suggestions offer knowledge base articles, related assets or configuration items, sentiment analysis, and similar incidents, advising the agent on the best actions to take next.

Sentiment analysis, which classifies whether a requester's chat comments are positive or negative, can bring to an employee's attention any incidents that have a negative sentiment. You can then escalate them accordingly to avoid negative customer satisfaction ratings.

How your IT department can benefit

When customers use the Virtual Agent, self-service use is improved and the number of incidents received through the service desk is reduced. The Virtual Agent helps users with simple or routine issues, letting your service desk agents focus on more important, complex tasks. Customer use of the Virtual Agent improves service desk productivity, accelerating response times and reducing Mean Time To Resolution (MTTR). See Virtual Agent.

In addition, when GenAI is enabled, SWSD creates Suggested solutions and draft responses, as well as Ticket summaries for agents to use.