Overcoming The Push and Pull of AI: Lessons from IT Teams in Making AI Work for You

Despite being in its infancy, artificial intelligence (AI) is already irrevocably impacting the IT industry and the way people across teams. However, tech pros often find themselves pulled in two different directions. On the one hand, tech pros feel a need to act with urgency to implement AI-powered solutions to enjoy the benefits of increased productivity and efficiency. But at the same time, there is hesitancy about the potential unintended consequences of AI and the risks involved with implementing potentially unproven tools too quickly.

All tech pros are struggling to answer the question of whether they are adding AI solutions into processes too aggressively or at exactly the rate innovation demands? The push and pull of AI can be exhausting. Being too cautious risks falling behind competitors who are more boldly embracing AI. Move too quickly and your team risks stumbling on implementing new – and, in some cases – largely unproven AI tools.

Modern enterprises are all about maximizing productivity, performance, growth potential, and interconnectivity. As software companies increasingly integrate AI features into their products and digital ecosystems evolve at a breakneck pace, tech professionals continue to struggle to understand how solutions available on the market can address the specific challenges they face.

With constrained resources, limited time, and mounting workloads due to increasingly complex environments, IT teams have embraced AI tools to provide a critical lift. AI can pre-define processes, automate repetitive workflows, set reminders, filter, and tag projects, helping team members focus on other important business needs. AI-powered IT Service Management (ITSM) features can support troubleshooting and guided incident resolution. AIOps is already hard at work helping with proactive digital services management and paving the road toward autonomous operations, which will require little to no human intervention.

The IT sector is also beginning to understand how the benefits of advances in natural language processing can aid DevOps, SecOps, and CloudOps teams.

While already highly effective in IT, AI has historically had a long adoption timeframe, similar to other emerging technologies. IT teams have successfully integrated AI offer lessons for others seeking to understand how to strike the balance on how quickly to implement AI solutions for tasks previously managed by humans. To make sure your organization can win with AI, consider the following steps:

1. Analyze your needs and understand what challenges you are seeking to overcome: No one rushes out to buy a new car. Instead, you look at the various models on the market and think about which ones meet your driving needs. This is the same approach organizations should take when considering how to deploy AI. SolarWinds customers have found that IT teams can save an average of 23 hours per week on IT service management tasks. However, you must think critically about where best to deploy AI. In order to decide where AI is most helpful, you first must audit your organization and learn where that extra productivity would be most impactful. AI can help save costs and quickly provide a return on investment if you approach it correctly and deploy it where the need is greatest. By understanding the unique challenges your organization faces, you can better determine where and how AI can be most impactful.
2. Understand AI can’t replace your team. Rather, when implemented well, AI becomes part of your team: When it comes to adopting AI, prioritizing ethical implementation is critical. That means making the tools part of your team rather than a replacement for human team members. Our human teams will always make up the core of a successful business. AI is not a replacement for human critical thinking. We can’t abandon the creativity driving successful human teams. Rather, AI should be a tool that enhances a team’s creativity. AI is helping to automate mundane tasks but humans will continue to play the role of creativity driver.
3. Keep your finger on the pulse of AI: New AI developments are happening almost every day. Teams need to stay up to date on the latest developments. This can be as simple as following a few trusted reporters or subscribing to newsletters covering updates and new solution providers offer. Remaining up to date on the latest developments is critical to ensuring teams are getting the most out of the AI technologies they deploy.
4. Don't be afraid to change the plan once it's in motion: Every organization is responsible for keeping their finger on the pulse of industry shifts and customer needs. It is critical to continue to evolve and grow as these needs change. As your company prepares to use AI to reach the next level, ensure there’s a strong foundation to build on that allows you to quickly adapt.

While AI may be the most popular buzzword in tech right now, it’s a relatively young technology. When getting started with AI, as with any new technologies, you should keep in mind one of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library guiding principles: Start where you are. Take stock of the solutions and tools already available. Communicate with your teams regularly. Share the latest developments in AI and automation tools with them, so that any implementations are less jarring and easier to acclimate to. In other words: Don’t stall innovation, but don’t spend our whole technology budget on new AI tools until you have a plan for how you’ll use them, either.

Regardless of how strong of a pull AI has on us these days, the process of adoption is about endurance—keeping up momentum for the long haul without getting exhausted.