The success of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) capabilities in both business and personal scenarios has elevated the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across enterprises. IT service management (ITSM) is not immune to this, with numerous AI ITSM capabilities gaining traction in IT organizations.
However, as with ITIL adoption, just because AI-enabled capabilities are made available within ITSM tools, it doesn’t mean they’re being used (or used as significantly as other AI-enabled capabilities).
This blog looks at which AI ITSM capabilities are currently experiencing the greatest traction with IT organizations.
The top AI ITSM capabilities in 2025
Before looking at the AI ITSM capabilities with the greatest traction, it’s important to appreciate that various factors will influence AI adoption (and the ITSM adoption it’s applied to). For example, an organization’s region, size, and industry will all likely influence how it uses ITSM best practices and AI-enabled capabilities for ITSM. They will also influence the corporate and employee appetite for and trust in AI capabilities.
Notwithstanding these differences, some AI ITSM capabilities have been adopted more than others. This adoption pattern reflects the rapid advances in GenAI technologies and their use cases.
The top AI ITSM capabilities at the start of 2025 are:
• Virtual agents or chatbots
• Intelligent ticket triage
• Virtual assistants for IT staff
• Data-driven decision-making
Each of these AI ITSM capabilities is described in more detail below.
Virtual agents or chatbots
Intelligent virtual agents or chatbots handle common end-user queries – for example, by providing quick answers to inquiries or performing routine troubleshooting steps.
The use of chatbots reduces the workload of the IT service desk human agents and, when designed and delivered appropriately, improves end-user satisfaction. One additional benefit of chatbots that shouldn’t be overlooked is that they provide 24/7 end-user support to support the more flexible working seen by organizations and global operations. Chatbots not only act as the first line of support interaction with end-users, but they also leverage automation to resolve issues and provision new services. For example, password resets and software installations.
However, these new capabilities must be integrated with existing IT operations capabilities. For example, chatbots must be able to seamlessly escalate any complex issues they can’t handle to your IT support team’s human agents.
Intelligent ticket triage
Intelligent ticket triage is AI-assisted workflow automation in action. The AI automatically classifies, prioritizes, and routes incoming incident and service request tickets to the right resolution group. When possible, the AI will also apply automated solutions to the issues and requests it’s handling.
The positive impact of intelligent ticket triage shouldn’t be undersold. It definitely speeds up ticket resolution, but this is just the IT impact. End-users and business operations also benefit, and this can be more significant. For example, AI-driven time savings improve end-user productivity because less time is lost on IT issues.
Virtual assistants for IT staff
AI-powered virtual assistants augment your IT service desk agents’ knowledge, skills, and experience – serving up real-time recommendations to the agents to speed up ticket resolution and improve their effectiveness. First, human agents benefit from IT’s knowledge base, with AI pulling the most relevant information. Second, the virtual agents offer one-click automation or step-by-step troubleshooting to help your agents resolve issues they couldn’t do otherwise. Third, the virtual agent also provides real-time insights into the devices associated with the issue. For example, it highlights that an end-user’s hard drive is nearly full to capacity.
There are also other virtual agent capabilities available to human agents. For example, the virtual agents could provide your human agents with real-time insights into end-user sentiment to highlight engagement issues, such as frustration, so your IT service desk can take appropriate steps to improve the experience.
Data-driven decision-making
While the first three AI capabilities have been on IT’s radar since AI-enabled capabilities first became an ITSM reality, GenAI’s analytical and reporting capabilities have pushed the data-driven decision-making opportunities to the fore.
Quite simply, AI capabilities can do so much more than humans, more quickly and without the probability of human error. AI can process large amounts of data from various sources, including device diagnostics, operational performance metrics, end-user feedback, and historical trends, to generate actionable insights for all levels of IT staff. For example, your IT leaders can use AI insights to prioritize IT support tasks, optimize resource allocation (both human and technology resources), and identify opportunities to continually improve IT service delivery.
The AI insights are also contextual. For example, AI can help your IT managers better prioritize improvement opportunities based on business impact. Or recommend cost-reduction strategies after analyzing IT performance and operational expenditure. Or enhance risk assessment in your IT change management/enablement practice by understanding the IT infrastructure and services impacted and the results of previous changes.
AI insights also enable predictive analytics and proactive support capabilities. For example, AI capabilities can analyze historical data to predict potential issues before they occur. Or AI can identify patterns and correlations to determine the root cause of problems.