{"id":103349,"date":"2024-01-19T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jumpcloud.com\/?p=103349"},"modified":"2024-01-09T17:00:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T22:00:51","slug":"ai-and-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jumpcloud.com\/blog\/ai-and-it","title":{"rendered":"AI and IT: How AI Shaped the IT Industry in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AI had a significant impact on IT in 2023, in large part because its developments brought many AI functions from rudimentary to viable business assets. In a 2023 McKinsey survey<\/a>, more than two-thirds of respondents said they expect their businesses to increase their investment in AI in the next three years. Further, the majority of respondents already reported seeing revenue increases related to AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following are some of the most significant developments that are contributing to AI\u2019s growing role in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. NLP Powers \u201cSmart Helpdesk\u201d Support<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What Is NLP?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Natural language processing (NLP) is the ability for computers to interact with humans by processing, interpreting, and responding to natural language input (i.e., someone speaking or writing in a normal, conversational way). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research and development in NLP technology has been underway for decades. It\u2019s based on large language models<\/a>, which are a form of recurrent neural network that first entered the scene in the 1980s. Since then, forms of NLP have made their way into popular culture in the forms of voice assistants like Siri, chatbots, more intuitive web searches, and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With some of NLP\u2019s latest developments, which were spurred by large-scale<\/a> (and expensive<\/a>) versions of previous efforts, we were met with functional, easy-to-use, and surprisingly human-like content generation capabilities. OpenAI was one of the first to pioneer this hyper-scale data mining method with ChatGPT, but other companies are employing<\/a> this technique, and the sophistication of NLP continues to evolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is NLP\u2019s Role in IT?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

These recent strides have fueled the development of several useful tools for automating the IT helpdesk process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

IT teams are harnessing AI\u2019s ability to analyze helpdesk tickets, understand user queries, and facilitate smoother communication between users and IT support systems with chatbots, virtual assistants, and other \u201csmart helpdesk\u201d tools. These tools can offer instant responses to user queries, troubleshoot and resolve common issues, and provide insights on helpdesk data (like most common ticket types, for example). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When executed well, smart helpdesk tools can improve the user experience, alleviate IT\u2019s workload, and shed light on opportunities for optimization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Generative AI Is Driving Augmented Work <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What Is Generative AI?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Before 2023, generative AI was something the general population knew little about, and those who were aware of it usually saw it as more of a toy than a business tool. In 2023, however, generative AI and tools like ChatGPT have become household \u2014 and workplace \u2014 names. In fact, a recent Gartner poll<\/a> of 1,400 executive leaders found that more than half of them<\/a> are piloting or producing with generative AI at their companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NLP\u2019s increasing sophistication accounts for one instance of this: written content generation. However, other forms of generative AI grew significantly in 2023 as well. From product design to image creation to code generation, businesses are finding ways to leverage generative AI in many aspects of their everyday work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

GenAI\u2019s Role in IT<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The rise in generative AI and other AI tools \u2014 like data analyzers and scheduling assistants, for example \u2014 has driven many businesses to embrace the concept of AI-augmented work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this approach, AI complements traditional work by taking over the tedious, time-consuming tasks to create space for people to innovate, strategize, and optimize. AI can also help gather and report on data in this process, which allows IT departments to continue to hone their processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Augmented work comes in many forms, but some popular ones in IT include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n