What is an AI Service Desk?

An AI help desk is a service desk that incorporates artificial intelligence to automate tasks, improve response times, and enhance user support. So, how is AI used in IT services? It can be used to automate ticket classification, provide chatbot-driven support, suggest relevant knowledge base articles, detect anomalies, and analyze trends for proactive issue resolution.

Many people have raised the question, Will AI replace the help desk? While AI significantly improves efficiency by managing routine inquiries and automating repetitive processes, complex issues still require human expertise.

Instead of replacing service desk agents, AI works alongside them, improving productivity and overall service quality.

5 benefits of using AI for the service desk

Organizations are under increasing pressure to continue delivering seamless and efficient support experiences in order to stay competitive. 

Pursuing a service desk optimization with AI offers a solution to this challenge since it can help streamline support operations, enhance agent productivity, and improve customer satisfaction.

Here are five key advantages that make AI a valuable addition to any help desk:

1. Faster, more personalized support

AI speeds up response times by automating common inquiries and providing instant solutions based on historical data. Virtual agents can analyze past interactions to tailor responses, making support more relevant and efficient.

2. Increased efficiency without added workload

According to a survey, 72% of tech companies already have AI agents deployed and report high levels of success. AI-powered bots can handle high volumes of tickets at once, allowing support teams to focus on complex cases. Automated categorization and intelligent routing ensure that tickets reach the right agent faster, reducing delays.

3. More time for agents to deliver value

Instead of spending time on repetitive tasks, agents can focus on resolving issues that require critical thinking and a human touch. AI takes care of routine inquiries, ticket assignments, and common troubleshooting, allowing support teams to contribute in more meaningful ways.

4. 24/7 Support availability

AI enables round-the-clock support without the cost of staffing multiple shifts. This is particularly valuable for global organizations with customers across different time zones. AI can handle basic after-hours inquiries and manage simple routine tasks when human agents are unavailable.

5. Smarter decision-making

AI analyzes patterns in ticket data to detect recurring issues, predict service disruptions, and recommend solutions. With AI-driven insights, businesses can proactively improve their support processes instead of reacting to problems as they arise. For example, AI can track seasonal support trends and predict upcoming volume spikes, allowing organizations to proactively address common issues before generating tickets.

How does a generative AI service desk work?

A generative AI service desk works by using large language models (LLMs) like GPT to understand and respond to customer inquiries in a conversational manner. When a user submits a question or problem, the AI interprets the natural language, extracts the intent, and accesses relevant knowledge from connected databases and documentation. 

The system then generates a human-like response addressing the specific issue. For common problems, the AI can provide complete solutions immediately, while for more complex issues, it might offer initial troubleshooting steps before escalating to human agents. 

Beyond handling individual tickets, the AI can also analyze patterns across historical support data, identifying common issues, seasonal trends, and recurring problems.

Throughout these processes, the AI learns from interactions, improving its responses over time. Behind the scenes, the system employs data protection measures like encryption and anonymization to maintain security while leveraging user data for more personalized support. 

6 tasks a generative AI help desk can automate

Here are seven practical ways to use AI in a service desk.

1. Self-service support: AI can be used for answering frequently asked questions, providing step-by-step troubleshooting guides, and directing users to relevant resources without human intervention.
2. Knowledge Management: Some use cases include automatically creating documentation from successful support interactions, updating existing articles with new information, and improving searchability.
3. Customer support automation: AI can be used to respond to repetitive inquiries around the clock, handle basic technical issues through guided workflows, and maintain consistent service quality during peak periods.
4. Ticket processing: AI can analyze incoming requests to determine urgency, route tickets to specialized teams based on issue type, and generate concise summaries that help agents quickly understand complex problems.
5. Personalization: AI can be used for tailoring responses based on customer history, translating support content across multiple languages, and maintaining consistent experiences across different communication channels.

“I would advise to stay focused on practical applications. Try to find a pain point and try to see if you can use AI to fix that problem. For example, historically we were looking for a way to reduce the time it takes an agent to reply to a message, but also improve the quality of the response. Before LLM we were unable to do both at the same time, but now we implemented a feature that allows an agent to respond quick, very low quality, and automatically improve it.”

Daniel Ciolek - Research & Development at InvGate

Episode 83 of Ticket Volume

InvGate Service Management’s AI service desk software features

InvGate Service Management, through its AI Hub, offers this features:

• Knowledge Article Generation: In under 30 seconds, a draft is automatically generated based on the ticket resolution. Agents can quickly review the draft, make any necessary edits, and submit it for approval in a few simple steps. 
   
• Smart suggestions: Provides real-time recommendations for ticket handling. It analyzes ticket details and historical data to suggest the right collaborator and timely escalations, ensuring faster resolution and compliance.
   
• AI-improved responses: Using natural language processing, it can analyze the agent's draft response and help them enhance it quickly with actions such as "improve," "shorten," or "expand."
   
• One-click ticket summaries: This feature allows users to generate a brief summary of the resolution activities to date. This is particularly useful when collaboration or approval is needed, as it provides a quick overview of the ticket's history and current status.
   
• Virtual agent: Offers customized assistance within a chat interface. Based on information from knowledge articles, it provides customers with solutions to their inquiries directly within the chat.
   
• Predictive ticketing: By identifying patterns and trends in ticket data, AI can forecast future problems and alert IT teams to take proactive measures before they escalate, minimizing downtime and improving overall service delivery.
   
• Major incident detection: Identifies potential major incidents early by analyzing patterns and impact, allowing teams to act quickly and minimize downtime.
   
• Common problem detection: It detects patterns across related tickets to help teams identify root causes before they escalate.
   
• Predictive risk and impact analysis: Helps identify high-risk tasks early using historical data to predict the risk and impact of change requests. It enables smarter prioritization, prevents escalations, and ensures service continuity.
   
• Keyword generation: This feature suggests relevant keywords when creating tickets, reducing user errors and ensuring that tickets are routed to the appropriate support teams from the outset.