IT service management (ITSM) is the hub for IT operations in most midsize to large organizations. ITSM software helps IT teams deliver essential services and track and manage incidents and service requests. However, ITSM is often a roadblock to greater IT efficiency.
In a 2025 survey by ITSM.tools, 29 percent of respondents said they are replacing their ITSM tools or plan to do so in the near term. The No. 1 reason was dissatisfaction with usability, limited flexibility or the need for manual interaction. Respondents were also unhappy with excessive maintenance costs and administrative effort.
The fact is, legacy ITSM platforms are complex and have nonintuitive interfaces. It takes time for IT service desk personnel to learn how to use them, and organizations often rely on subject-matter experts to fill those skills gaps. Even when employees become familiar with the software, they spend a lot of time on manual, repetitive processes. Workflows are rule-based, making maintenance and customization difficult.
Why Agentic AI Is the Future
Agentic AI is starting to disrupt the ITSM market by enabling a shift from reactive, human-led support to proactive, autonomous service delivery. This change is being driven by autonomous AI systems that can make independent decisions and perform complex, multi-step tasks to achieve a specific goal without constant human oversight. Agentic AI is proactive and adaptable, learning from its environment and experiences to improve its performance over time.
Unlike traditional ITSM automation that follows rigid scripts, agentic AI can detect issues and diagnose problems by correlating data from various systems. AI gents can then initiate approved remediation actions and resolve the incident from end to end without human intervention.
Here’s an example. A user reports a problem via email, chat or another channel. An AI agent interprets the request, identifies the issue, and determines the urgency and complexity. The agent decides how to proceed based on context, then uses various tools and APIs to take action across multiple systems. It also initiates processes for any needed approvals. An advanced LLM manages the entire workflow.
Predictive, Proactive and Intelligent
With agentic AI, IT teams can move from a “firefighting” role to a strategic, preventive one. AI agents can continuously monitor the IT environment to spot patterns and anomalies that point to potential issues, allowing IT teams to address problems before they impact users or escalate into major disruptions.
The predictive capabilities of agentic AI also reduce the risks of new technology rollouts and upgrades. Agentic AI can analyze potential downstream impacts before IT infrastructure changes are executed. It can also recommend the optimal time for updates and handle low-risk changes autonomously, leading to smoother rollouts and reduced human error.
Intelligent automation eliminates many routine, manual tasks. Natural language-based self-service options can fully resolve common requests such as password resets or software provisioning. This provides faster, 24x7 support and significantly reduces the volume of tickets reaching IT service desk staff.
For issues that require human expertise, agentic AI acts as an intelligent assistant. AI agents can summarize tickets, retrieve relevant information from knowledge bases, recommend solutions and automate repetitive steps. This frees human agents to focus on higher-impact work and complex problem-solving.
The Changing Role of IT Teams
By automating multi-step workflows and repetitive tasks, agentic AI can significantly reduce operational costs and mean time to resolution while enhancing the employee experience. For most tasks, humans won’t have to interact with the ITSM system. However, agentic AI does not remove humans from the equation. IT teams will need new skill sets and a shift in focus to governance, compliance and human-AI collaboration.
The role of IT professionals is changing from manual upkeep to “AgentOps” — managing, supervising and refining AI agents. AgentOps applies principles from DevOps and MLOps to ensure agents are reliable, observable and controllable as they are developed, deployed and monitored in production environments.
Technologent can help IT teams make that transition by implementing the right agentic AI tools and refining processes to take full advantage of them. We can also address potential issues such as data quality, security and governance. Let us help you revolutionize your ITSM with intelligent, autonomous AI agents.
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