With cost-effective 24/7 network monitoring, predictive maintenance and accelerated problem resolution, AI can help organizations achieve better CX and staff productivity.

When issues arise with digital technology—as they eventually do—companies must have the ability to fix them before any major impact occurs. Where this was easier said than done, the increasing accessibility of AI technology has made preventive, proactive monitoring easier. This can deliver a clear and measurable impact for the business.

With almost every service-oriented company now communicating with customers via digital channels (due to social distancing and safety considerations), monitoring and addressing communications breakdowns effectively can impact customer experience and trust tremendously.

Take for example, ride hailing platform Grab, which experienced a service disruption in the Singapore office for at least 3.5 hours in February. This disruption affected customers across several countries in the region, resulting in price surges on competing platforms.

Long discussions can be held to dissect every single point where a solution could have come in to prevent such problems. But as the story stands, being able to predict a business disruption well before it happens—and resolving it before customers are impacted—is the game-changing advantage of AI.

From reactive to proactive

An organization can now use AI as a ‘crystal ball’ to detect (and preempt) problems early, and fix them before they cause significant damage.

The ability to predict incoming problems can help businesses turn the dial from a reaction to proactive approach. It can serve as an early warning system that detects the danger signs and symptoms that precede problems (such as anomalies in health and performance data) and instantly issue a system alert. The AI can then trigger actions to prevent the identified problems from recurring in future.

By using AI to prevent outages and downtime 24/7 without much human intervention and on a cost-effective basis, businesses can save time and money, improve employee productivity, and lessen the impact of any damage to the brand impact.

What AI monitoring tool?

The automated monitoring of an organization’s IT infrastructure—from the internal network all the way to the Cloud system—is done in near-real-time:

  • All changes are captured, correlated and visualized in the most effective way.
  • Based on previously learned behavioral patterns, AI also enables organizations to predict any issues that may be lurking within their complex IT environments.
  • Finally, by automating certain functions, AI allows employees to do more with their time and contribute more to the business, rather than worry about routers, cloud, and containers. They can focus on the core competency of their business, instead of struggling to keep the lights on.

But what constitutes a good monitoring tool? There are plenty in the market today, with varying levels of effectiveness. Here are some pointers:

  1. At the basic level, look for one that can proactively detect problems. A tool that does not just flag a problem, but also gathers the information required to uncover the root cause of the problem and facilitate administrators to fix it effortlessly and permanently. When a problem arises, teams will no longer have to manually check every piece of infrastructure in the IT environment—which is not humanly possible in today’s complex digital infrastructures.
  2. With a monitoring tool powered by AI and automation, businesses can be kept abreast of everything happening in the IT environment at any given time. Find a solution that allows teams to see what is working and what is not, at a glance, and also gain contextual intelligence across the complex infrastructure.
  3. A suitable AI monitoring tool should also issue meaningful alerts that depict signal and eliminate noise without false positives or negatives. Through this approach, the system can be trusted to discern meaningly normative patterns and when detecting anomalies, apply foresight to predict and prevent problems or at least get them solved much more effectively.

In today’s digital economy, organizations that see a need for AI monitoring can put the technology to use in satisfying the digital customer’s incessant demand for a great, always-on experience and at the very least, a very quick and positive outcome to any problem encountered—made possible by AI.