SolarWinds AI for Service Desk has arrived! Our new features have already begun to simplify processes and streamline tasks for the agents we serve. With the launch complete, let’s look at our AI journey so far—and where SolarWinds AI goes from here.

Traditional AI

For almost a decade, SolarWinds® Service Desk has leveraged the power of traditional artificial intelligence (AI) to serve requesters and technicians. Traditional AI uses machine learning to review keywords entered by requesters in the Portal, and offers Smart Suggestions in response. Suggestions may include Service Catalog items matching keywords entered or any applicable knowledge base articles (solutions). The benefits include the deflection of entered tickets by allowing the requester an opportunity to self-heal. This frees up technicians to focus on more complex issues. 

Traditional AI continues to provide benefits, offering Smart Suggestions for agents to leverage when working on a ticket. Smart Suggestions are made based on keyword matching from historical analysis of similar issues. These suggestions supply knowledge base articles, related assets or configuration items, sentiment analysis, and similar incidents, advising the agent on the best actions to take next.

Virtual Agent

The Virtual Agent integrated with AI was released 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 offers a hand-off to a human service desk agent when needed.

When customers use the Virtual Agent, self-service is improved, reducing the number of incidents received through the service desk. Customer use of the Virtual Agent improves service desk productivity, accelerating response times and reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR).

Generative AI

Generative AI is a recently launched feature in SolarWinds Service Desk. The functionality provides technicians with ticket information, including suggested solution steps, draft responses to the requester, and draft ticket summaries. Generative AI leverages existing ticket data to generate suggestions.

Suggested solutions and draft responses can help agents reduce MTTR, while available ticket summaries facilitate faster resolution of future incidents. This also contributes to knowledge building and enhances the responses generated by generative AI.

The SolarWinds AI journey continues. We intend to provide ever more advanced assistance to users and technicians by delivering increased efficiencies, reduced downtime, and improved customer experience. Stay tuned for exciting news of further enhanced AI functionality in SolarWinds Service Desk and across the SolarWinds suite of products.