It seems like we’ve been hearing this forever: automation is coming and robots will soon be able to do our jobs. We’ve seen it with the arrival of computers in the workplace in the 80s and then with the Internet in the 90s and so on and so forth, with the arrival of each latest innovation.
Today, it’s Artificial Intelligence that is that latest innovation, as it recently made tremendous progress thanks to Deep Learning, a method allowing for the learning of higher-level knowledge (i.e. sound and image recognition). AI today is able to predict, adapt and assimilate information like never before, possibly rendering jobs that we once thought were safe (think of jobs like data entry, tech support or event planning for example) now possibly threatened by this innovation.
How can we prepare for this future? Are we really on the verge of a work revolution?
We’re in a good position to find out here in Quebec, in Montreal more specifically, where we’re at the center of important scientific research and innovations on Artificial Intelligence. Initiatives like the Institute for Data Valorisation (IVADO) contribute to further the progress of the research and expertise pertaining to AI and help to demystify the myths around AI.
What happens when innovative technology is introduced?
Let’s first take a look at the history of changes in the workplace using the examples we’ve mentioned above: What happened when computers were introduced to the business world?
There certainly was an increase in employee productivity, but with this innovation also came the need to maintain, to improve and support those computers.
Ultimately, it’s the modern IT department that was born and that continues to grow and evolve to this day!
The same thing happened with the modern-day Internet, where we’ve seen a large number of businesses be created, whether offering an Internet connexion, create online software or tools, apps and more recently storage capacity and services in the Cloud.
Going even further, it is possible to say that with every technological innovation, be it an incremental innovation or a disruptive one, has not brought substantial job droughts, but instead quite the opposite, there’s been job growth. The Economist has actually done a research on this topic, going over the impact on jobs for every big technological innovation starting from the Industrial Revolution and has concluded that a greater number of jobs were created in the medium and long term, related to this innovation.
What about AI?
AI, with Big Data, brings forth a capacity to collect and analyze enormous quantities of data, facilitating decision-making, offering better predictions of future trends and providing an increase in efficiency and productivity. New possibilities will appear to automate your business processes and services, for exceptional productivity.
Here at C2 Enterprise, evolving in IT Service Management (ITSM), we already see how AI can be beneficial. An ITSM tool, thanks to artificial intelligence can automatically determine the request of a client and provide him with dynamic forms, reacting based on the clients’ choices, proposing solutions from an evolutive database.
Automated actions can be executed, based on business rules, tickets and tasks could be distributed automatically to the designated team or resource after an approbation, automated notifications can be sent to inform you of the status of a ticket, the maintenance of Configuration Items (CI) maintenance in your CMDB based on a change, you could set up an automated escalation process when your SLA requirements are not met.
Data is now received in real-time. When can even receive personalized predictive report. This is now a very real reality.
Take the lead and stand out!
Thus, artificial intelligence must be seen as an opportunity. It is already possible to use it in several parts of your current job:
To eliminate bottlenecks in your processes
The strength of artificial intelligence and automation lies in the tasks or parts of the process where the process slowed down. Often these tasks, repetitive and monotonous, can benefit from the artificial intelligence, allowing to complete them quickly.
Regardless of your sector of work, if there are bottlenecks in your processes, there is a good chance that the AI can reduce or even eliminate them.
To create alerts
Are you close to failing to meet one or more of your Service Level Agreements (SLAs)? A simple business rule can alert teams of appropriate actions and save you a lot of trouble.
From simple automated alerts to notifying a ticket that needs to be processed before the end of the prescribed response time, or to alert you of the deadline date for a ticket resolution, you can significantly improve your performance on your service agreements.
To help you make decisions
Artificial intelligence is capable of collecting an enormous amount of data. With the ability to analyze these data and pass them on in reports or tables to decision makers. An important decision will be taken with the most complete and accurate information possible.
Even simpler: you do not have an information when you need it? Equip yourself with a digital assistant (Like the Siri, Cortana, or Alexa of this world) who will use his database to find you the answer in less than a minute.
Up to optimize your inventory management
AI can also be useful for managing your assets (physical inventory, equipment, infrastructure, software licenses, etc.). On the one hand with interconnected objects that helps you to reap that huge amount of data that we have been writing earlier.
On the other hand, these objects and your other IT assets can be managed in a configuration management database (CMDB), where you can, among other things, automate their maintenance with business rules and mitigate the impacts of related incidents the same equipment.