Can AI Eliminate IT Tickets? Exploring the Future of Automated IT

"The concept of Zero Ticket IT is that instead of reacting to the ticket and trying to solve the ticket, you go directly to the source of the issue." This statement by Sean Heuer, CEO of Resolve Systems, sets the stage for this episode of the Tech Transformed podcast.

Shubhangi Dua, podcast host and producer at EM360Tech, , sits down with Heuer to unpack the ambitious yet achievable vision of Zero Ticket IT and how both agentic AI and intelligent automation are poised to change IT operations.

Traditional IT ticketing systems, with their reactive nature and reliance on human intervention, are facing an overdue overhaul. Heuer shares a path towards a more efficient, proactive, and ultimately frictionless IT experience.

What is Zero Ticket IT?

Zero Ticket IT shifts the focus from reacting to individual tickets to directly addressing the source of the issue. As Heuer explains, a major portion (roughly 70 per cent) of IT tickets originate from employee requests and range from password resets to connectivity problems. Another substantial chunk comes from machine alerts, often leading to "alert storms" where a single underlying issue triggers a cascade of notifications.

For instance, imagine an AI-powered conversational interface that can understand an employee's problem. Now this problem can be resolved using a vast knowledge base and service catalog. 

"There's no reason for a human to intervene if you locked your account. If you need to reset your password. There's no reason for a human to have to handle that. It should happen instantaneously," Heuer elaborates. This self-service approach immediately reduces ticket volume by a significant margin.

AI Automation to Resolve Substantial IT Requests

Automation can also solve challenges head-on by integrating AI operations (AIOps) solutions to analyse countless machine alerts, thereby identifying correlations and spotting the root cause. 

"Instead of getting a thousand incidents you have to manage, you get one incident," Heuer states, allowing for precise and rapid resolution.

Heuer highlights that by implementing these two layers — direct interfaces for employees and intelligent automation for machine alerts — organisations can achieve a 60 per cent to 70 per cent reduction in total ticket volume.. 

Some Resolve Systems customers have even seen up to an 80 per cent reduction, with Heuer noting: "We have a telco customer that's gotten to 80 per cent reduction of incidents in their network and infrastructure. We have a retail company that has gotten to 75 per cent reduction. Auto-remediation is the solution for all employee requests."

Heuer envisions a future where the core role of an IT technician evolves from reactive ticket-solving to proactively managing and optimizing AI and automation systems. The focus will be on identifying patterns, improving knowledge articles, and developing new automations. 

The Resolve...