Welcome to the future of employee support! Whether it's AI-powered responses or instant assistance for your employees, our cutting-edge AI helpdesk has everything you need.
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We frequently hear questions from IT admins regarding the benefits of transitioning from their current service desk setup to Gaspar AI. The reasons they’re hesitant vary. Some express uncertainty about the longevity of AI solutions, viewing them as mere trends (they’re not!). Others question the tangible value AI brings beyond enhanced searches. Many are concerned about the security and ethical implications of AI implementation, or they don’t have much information about all the capabilities of AI helpdesks.
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Ultimately, the decision rests with each IT manager and CIO. To assist in this decision-making process, we've compiled a comprehensive list highlighting why Gaspar AI is better for your employee support needs, and why you should seriously consider switching from your traditional service desk setup.
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From instant, AI-powered resolution for employee requests to a simple, unified user experience centered around Microsoft Teams and Slack, our platform offers many features aligned with modern employee support help desks' needs. 

## 1. Slack and Microsoft Teams first, over portals, email or phone

Our customers have consistently voiced their dissatisfaction with traditional ITSM portals as the primary means of contacting helpdesk teams. Employees often struggle to recall portal URLs and to navigate disparate systems, making it hard to find the support they need and adding unnecessary complexity to seeking assistance.
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Recognizing this complexity, Gaspar AI streamlines employee support by offering a unified, easy-to-use solution that eliminates the need for multiple tools. The rise of platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams as central hubs for workplace communication offers the best place to seek help. Our friendly, intuitive interface on [Slack](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/employee-helpdesk-on-slack) and [MS Teams](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/using-ms-teams-for-it-support) empowers employees to just talk with our chatbot through direct messages (DMs) or public channels and immediately get solutions. By leveraging Gaspar AI's capabilities, employees can receive timely assistance without navigating away from their preferred collaboration tools. Whether they're in the office or on the go, employees can access forms, receive answers, and submit requests with ease using Slack and MS Teams mobile apps.
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This streamlined approach eliminates the need to remember portal URLs, different log-in details or grapple with desktop interfaces, making support more accessible and efficient for all employees and encouraging widespread adoption. 

## 2. AI capabilities to resolve employee issues with no human intervention

We’ve learned from our initial research and our early customers that a significant portion of IT queries revolve around requests for new software access, finding reports and policies, and the never-ending stream of asks for password resets.
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Each of these queries prompts agents to navigate through various tools, typically requiring four to ten clicks per task. Multiply that by just ten queries, and you're looking at hundreds of clicks and several hours consumed by repetitive tasks. In the meantime, end users stay inactive, getting more frustrated by the minute.
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That’s why we built our AI capabilities. Gaspar AI understands queries necessitating actions across different platforms, their intent and user context, and executes them automatically, sparing your agents from manual intervention.
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Unlike traditional software solutions that demand meticulous manual setup and configuration, Gaspar AI is ready to use: its plugins are easy to enable with just one click. They require no implementation specialists or additional setup expenses. They seamlessly integrate into your workflow, automating mundane employee support tasks such as [password resets](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/how-to-get-rid-of-password-reset-requests-in-ten-seconds) and software access approvals, empowering your employees to handle essential functions like [time-off requests](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/streamlining-hr-processes-with-gaspar-ai-and-hibob) with ease—all without the need for human intervention. 
 

## 3. Keep it simple: no tech talk, just everyday language

Gaspar AI makes it easy to access support without the need to know technical or IT terms: thanks to LLM training, NLP and NLU, employees just talk to our chatbot in everyday language and are instantly understood, engage in interactive conversations and get human-like answers.
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Gaspar AI has been built on advanced LLMs, and trained with high-quality data sets specific to the employee support sector, ensuring instant understanding of issues and human-like, accurate answers. Our Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) [technology](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/gaspar-generative-ai-helpdesk) outperforms the competition and can be trained within weeks for a new language. Thanks to our dialog management capabilities, our Virtual Agent can ask follow-up questions and clarifications until the employee’s issue is resolved. 

## 4. Summarized knowledge at your fingertips - no need to read a hundred resources

Employees are losing valuable time and productivity as they navigate disparate systems searching for the insights necessary to fuel informed decisions and foster innovation. A McKinsey report reveals that employees dedicate a staggering 19% of their workday just searching for information. They know that a treasure trove of tribal knowledge lies buried within knowledge articles, slide decks, and reports —if only they could find it!
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With Gaspar AI, you can now fill in the knowledge void: employees can access hard-to-find resources seamlessly on Slack, MS Teams and the ITSM portal thanks to our AI-generated summaries. Our AI helpdesk platform integrates with your knowledge base and internal repositories to automatically index and ingest information, and then match employees' requests with concise solutions. It instantly consolidates information from different sources, staying grounded in your company’s data, and delivers responses in a human-like way. All AI-generated answer summaries adhere to access permissions and users can instantly verify them through citations and links to source content, boosting their trust to our AI platform. 
 

## 5. Faster approvals for better results

A significant bottleneck in organizational processes often arises from delays in obtaining necessary approvals. It can be a delay in getting the necessary raw materials, a very delayed payment to a supplier, or an employee having trouble getting their well-deserved time off.
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Traditional systems rely on email notifications to alert managers of pending approvals. However, in the age of overflowing inboxes, these notifications frequently go unnoticed. Moreover, even when they don’t, the approval process can be time-consuming, with many steps until it’s done. That’s why with Gaspar AI approvals are directly handled in a few minutes on Slack and MS Teams. The requester submits their request through our chatbot on Slack and MS Teams and the approver instantly receives an alert to approve or decline. Both parties receive status updates and notifications once the request is approved. 

## 6. Instant assistance over hours of waiting

The Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) an employee issue is about 26 hours. We know that time is money: long hours of unresolved issues, inaccessible accounts, system downtime and more, can cause business disruptions, leading to loss of revenue and customer dissatisfaction. Let alone employee frustration for being uncapable to do their job and feeling unproductive. Thus, the shorter the time it takes to address an issue, the better.
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With Gaspar AI you can [address most routine issues](https://gaspar-www.sfo3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/abe34235b163f1ec5d008388da9cecd1.pdf) immediately: we’re talking about account issues, password resets, HR and IT troubleshooting questions, time-off requests, software and hardware provisioning, finding information about company policies, VPN access, group and email list issues, and more. Employees just engage in a conversation with our virtual Agent on Slack or MS Teams and instantly get their issue resolved. And we do this for more than 40% of your helpdesk issues!
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Even for complex issues, with Gaspar AI you can speed-up resolution: by facilitating handoff to the right agent with easy ticket creation on Slack and MS Teams, smart categorization and routing, you can resolve them more easily and quickly. 

## 7. Faster than ever setup: no coding, just a few clicks

We're enthusiasts for great software, both as users and creators. That's why we've prioritized making the entire journey, from setup to everyday use, as effortless as possible.
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Installing Gaspar AI into your [Slack workspace](https://www.gaspar.ai/slack-integration)? Just a few clicks to log in with and enable your SSO, configure your ITSM and your preferred channel settings, and integrate with your internal resources and apps, and you are up and running. It’s a similar process when you use Microsoft Teams. Our customers often find themselves diving into Gaspar AI’s features within just one day, often with minimal guidance. There's no need to dedicate engineering resources or train for days to understand how the platform works. There’s no need to manually create rules to automate processes: our Generative AI chatbot is ready-to-use and our workflow templates allow you to craft customized workflows for the processes you want to automate. 

## 8. 24/7 help vs 9 to 5

When it comes to getting support, there shouldn’t be a schedule: tech issues can happen at any time, and multiple time zones can’t be accommodated in a specific timeframe.
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Gaspar AI offers round-the-clock assistance, unlike traditional support limited to standard working hours. With our AI chatbot offering in-app instant support on 3 applications - Slack, MS Teams and JSM support portal, users can access help and guidance at any time, ensuring immediate resolution of issues and uninterrupted workflow. Moreover, our AI-powered support can handle a vast volume of inquiries simultaneously, minimizing wait times and optimizing efficiency, a feat unattainable with traditional support models constrained by human availability. 

## 9. Purpose-built for employee experience, not customer support

You might be thinking about using your customer support platform for internal support as well. Feedback from customers utilizing customer support helpdesks for employee support reveals that while these tools excel with external customers, they often lack functionality tailored to internal support needs. Adapting customer-service features to fit internal use cases, rather than utilizing purpose-built internal helpdesk features such as service catalogs or approvals, can be time-consuming and inconvenient.
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Gaspar AI is designed specifically for IT and internal helpdesk teams that provide day-to-day support to employees, with product development prioritizing features aimed at enhancing their workflow efficiency. With native support for commonly used apps, service catalogs, approval policies, company resources, and notifications through Slack and Microsoft Teams, Gaspar AI streamlines internal support processes without the need for extensive customization.
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Additionally, upcoming features like hardware management and proactive alerts further underscore Gaspar AI’s commitment to empowering employee support teams and maximizing productivity without excessive software customization. 


## Accelerate employee support efficiency with Gaspar AI

Gaspar AI emerges as a transformative solution for addressing your most common employee support pain points and the problems you have with your current service desk setup. It offers unparalleled value through its advanced Generative AI capabilities and its native built-for internal support. We're deeply engaged with our current customers to pinpoint areas of concern, enhancing our ability to learn while we improve our features and add new capabilities.
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If you seek more than just an AI vendor — but rather a collaborative partner who understands your requirements and goals, and actively assists you in transitioning away from old software stacks — then you should [try Gaspar AI out](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request).

Why switch to Gaspar AI for employee support

Discover why it’s time to ditch your old support setup for Gaspar AI. From AI-powered help to streamlined workflows, we have everything you need for efficient employee support.

Switch to Gaspar AI: 9 reasons to upgrade your old employee support

Helpdesk teams are struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing volume of incoming employee requests. The traditional way of doing support is highly inefficient: resolution is always late, ticket backlogs are only increasing, and strategic projects are left with no human resources. At the same time, end users can’t work on their projects, complain about IT and helpdesk teams and can’t find crucial information. IT and helpdesk teams are overwhelmed and stressed, employees are unproductive and unhappy. That’s a lot of negativity to deal with!
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Recognizing this complexity, Gaspar AI streamlines employee support by offering a generative AI, unified, easy-to-use solution for instant assistance. In this blog, we will focus on our Slack integration and explain why setting up an employee helpdesk there can offer great benefits to your company, what are the main features, and how you can install it. 

 
## What is Gaspar AI’s generative AI helpdesk?

A generative AI helpdesk for employee support empowers your teams to perform tasks, find answers and take informed decisions. It is a secure and always available support platform built for an AI-first world. Thanks to advanced language models, it offers dynamic, human-like conversations, seamlessly integrating with various communication channels and IT systems. It empowers employees to act, search, query, and generate content across a multitude of enterprise applications. Fueled by constantly improving generative models, AI-driven analytics for performance evaluation, and developer tools for customizable use cases, it's the future of assistance.
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Gaspar AI’s genAI helpdesk platform integrates with various knowledge bases (such as Coda, Notion, Google Docs, Confluence and more) and uses [Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/retrieval-augmented-generation-and-enterprise-helpdesk) (RAG) to search and retrieve relevant information. Thanks to [advanced NLP](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/gaspar-generative-ai-helpdesk) it generates accurate, helpful, human-like responses, ensuring that the generated answers are contextually appropriate, reliable and tailored to the employee's needs. Our platform is characterized by reduced hallucinations when compared to others: RAG mitigates the risk of generating misleading or incorrect responses that could lead to user frustration or worse, wrong decisions.
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It also offers more than [30 ready-to-use integrations](https://www.gaspar.ai/integrations) with your commonly used apps to automate more than a hundred tasks. Gaspar AI understands queries necessitating actions across different platforms, their intent and user context, and executes them automatically, sparing your agents from manual intervention. Our plugins seamlessly integrate into your workflow, automating mundane employee support tasks such as password resets and software access approvals, empowering your employees to handle essential functions like time-off requests with ease—all without the need for human intervention. 

 

## Why integrate a generative AI helpdesk within Slack?

 

Integrating the generative AI helpdesk with Slack presents multiple benefits for organizations aiming to enhance their service desk operations: 

 

- **Enhanced accessibility**: Employees can access the helpdesk directly within Slack, where they already spend a substantial amount of their time, making it convenient to seek help without switching platforms or knowing technical jargon. 

- **Streamlined communication**: By integrating with Slack, all helpdesk interactions are centralized in one platform, simplifying communication and making it easier to track and manage support requests. 

- **Increased user adoption**: Since employees are already familiar with Slack, they are more likely to use the AI helpdesk, leading to higher engagement and utilization rates. 

- **Enhanced and real-time collaboration**: Integration with Slack facilitates better collaboration among employees and support agents, as they can easily share information, documents, and updates within the same platform. 

- **Cost savings**: Integrating the helpdesk within Slack can lead to cost savings by consolidating tools and eliminating the need for separate service desk software licenses. Additionally, it boosts the ROI of current Slack investments.  


By embedding service desk capabilities within Slack, companies can establish a central hub for communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. This consolidation simplifies workflows and nurtures a culture of teamwork and knowledge sharing among employees. 

 
## Gaspar AI helpdesk Slack integration key features

When you integrate Slack with Gaspar AI, you get extra AI-powered features to optimize your employee support operations and boost efficiency. 

 

### Automated resolution

Gaspar AI’s Generative AI chatbot automatically and instantly resolves at least 40% of employee issues without human intervention, powered by LLMs and 3rd party plugins. Most common problems addressed include [password resets](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/automated-password-reset), software and hardware provisioning, group and email management, access requests, and more! 

### Automated approvals

Gaspar AI makes it easy for everyone to ask for time-off or access the channels, folders and groups they need but not the ones they don't. The process happens on Slack for both the requester and the approver, and they can track the request’s status on the same platform.  

### Instant, accurate, human-like answers

Your workforce can instantly find information – HR policies, IT troubleshooting and more just by asking our AI Virtual Agent on Slack. It searches articles, documents and data across knowledge bases and repositories, and can ask follow-up questions until employees get the exact answer. Our chatbot serves them concise summaries instead of links to articles, along with citations to enhance trust.  

### Efficient internal communications

If you are fed up with sending important email updates that nobody reads, then you’ll love this feature. With Gaspar AI, you can reach and engage employees by sending tailored messages directly through Slack — motivating them to act. You can create announcements about anything: software migrations, planned maintenance, office lunches, team reviews, changes in HR time-off policy, reminders about expenses submission, or updates about new product launches and campaigns.  

### No-code workflow automation

Reduce manual work by 80% and minimize repetitive tasks such as [onboarding](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/how-to-complete-employee-onboarding-in-under-one-minute) by creating no-code, customized workflows. You can activate them whenever needed directly from Slack or set up triggers.  

### Hassle-free, automated ITSM

In case of auto-resolution, a ticket is automatically created on your ITSM platform. If the chatbot can't resolve the issue, it facilitates handoff to the right agent with easy ticket creation on Slack and smart routing. End users and agents can follow up the process, receive updates and track the status on Slack at any moment.  

 

## Setting up Gaspar AI on Slack

Setting up Gaspar AI is a straightforward process. You can start with a [free 21-day trial](https://www.gaspar.ai/free-trial-signup). Then, log in with your SSO- e.g. Google, Microsoft 365 – and a member of our team will contact you to onboard you. You can also see detailed steps [here](https://www.gaspar.ai/slack-integration). You will have the opportunity to configure permissions and access controls to ensure that everyone accesses only the information they should, and that sensitive information remains secure. IT admins will define the appropriate level of access for different user roles, including administrators, IT support staff and end-users. The platform is highly customizable, so you can choose the features and level of automation you want.
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We're enthusiasts for great software, both as users and creators. That's why we've prioritized making the entire journey, from setup to everyday use, as effortless as possible. 

 

## Benefits of Gaspar AI in the workplace

Implementing Gaspar AI on Slack has multiple benefits for end users and helpdesk teams: 

 

- **More than 40% of issues automatically resolved**: Gaspar, our AI Virtual Agent, resolves employee issues directly on Slack and automates tasks without human intervention. Your busy teams no longer answer the same questions over and over and have fewer tickets to deal with. 

- **80% less manual work**: By automating the most repetitive tasks, end users and helpdesk teams perform less manual work.  

- **More than 85% of questions instantly answered**: Gaspar AI answers instantly and automatically most of employee queries, with no need for human intervention or search. 

- **Increased productivity**: Fast and accurate issue resolution means less downtime, which empowers your workforce to be more productive.  

- **24/7 access to help**: Our generative AI helpdesk knows no time limit – it's available whenever employees need it.  

- **More time to work on strategic, impactful projects**: With fewer tickets to handle, IT teams are free to focus on bigger and more important projects. 

- **Decreased costs**: With Gaspar AI you decrease resolution time and the cost of inefficient time, thus lowering related costs. Consequently, your company saves money and increases profitability. 

- **Happier employees**: Streamlined communication leads to perfect employee experiences: it frees their time and makes them more productive, leading to higher satisfaction, retention, and a great workplace culture. 

 

If you’d like to take a step forward into your AI journey, [schedule a call](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request) with us to discuss your needs and goals. You will also get the chance to see the platform in action and experience our generative AI power first-hand.

Discover how to offer more efficient support with a generative AI helpdesk on Slack. Understand the key features, benefits and capabilities. Read now!

Smarter support: get a generative AI helpdesk on Slack

Shadow AI - also dubbed “shadow IT” or “BYOAI,”- is a term describing unsanctioned or ad-hoc generative AI use within an organization that's outside IT governance. This can occur when individual departments or employees adopt AI-powered tools or solutions independently, often without the knowledge or approval of central IT or data management teams. That enterprising spirit can be great, in a vacuum—but eager employees may lack relevant information or perspective regarding security, privacy or compliance. This can expose businesses to a great deal of risk. For example, an employee might unknowingly feed trade secrets to a public-facing AI model that continually trains on user input, or use copyright-protected material to train a proprietary model for content generation and expose their company to legal action.
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Shadow AI is an issue often overlooked when thinking about the risks of inefficient and slow employee support. And that’s too bad: according to [Salesforce](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2023/09/07/ai-usage-research/), 75% of users are looking to automate tasks at work by using generative AI. But eager employees may lack relevant information or perspective regarding security, privacy or compliance.  This can significantly increase the risk exposure for businesses. For instance, an employee could inadvertently disclose trade secrets by feeding them into a publicly accessible AI model that continuously learns from user input.
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As if IT departments didn't have enough on their plate, the adoption of generative AI is gaining momentum. As per the Salesforce survey, 52% of respondents noted a rise in their usage of generative AI since its initial implementation. This surge signifies that the challenge of shadow AI is not only here but is also expanding, posing a growing concern for IT.
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"The reality is, everybody's using it," said Matt Barrington, Americas emerging technologies leader at EY about recent [EY research](https://www.ey.com/en_us/consulting/businesses-can-stop-rising-ai-use-from-fueling-anxiety) finding that 90% of respondents used AI at work. "Whether you like it or not, your people are using it today, so you should figure out how to align them to its ethical and responsible use." 

## Why employees resort to shadow AI?

There are various reasons why employees resort to shadow IT, including: 

1. Perceiving the IT/helpdesk department as slow and unresponsive or lacking the expertise to manage new technologies effectively. Think about it: with the Mean Time to Resolve an issue being 26 hours, oftentimes they can’t be bothered to remain idle for so long and potentially be unproductive.  
2. Needing solutions for specific use cases that approved applications don't cover. 
3. Facing budget limitations that prevent the adoption of officially sanctioned enterprise-level versions of emerging technologies. 
4. Finding the technological and tooling constraints of approved projects too limiting for their needs. 


They thus turn to user-friendly Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, which they can try out in their web browsers with little difficulty - without going through IT review and approval processes. The impulse is understandable, but shadow AI -- as with any sanctioned large language model (LLM) AI project -- presents various cybersecurity and business risks.  

## What are the risks associated with shadow AI?

Shadow AI can present various challenges and risks to companies, including the following: 

- **Functional risks**: Functional risks arise from the operational capabilities of an AI tool. Take, for instance, model drift, which occurs when the AI model deviates from its intended purpose due to changes in the technical environment or outdated training data. This deviation renders the model ineffective and potentially misleading, posing a functional risk to the company. 
- **Operational risks**: Operational risks pose threats to the company’s ability to conduct business effectively. These risks manifest in various forms. For example, a shadow AI tool might provide inaccurate advice due to model drift or might be hallucinating and generating false information. Acting on such advice could lead to wrong decisions.  
- **Data security and privacy concerns**: When using an unsanctioned AI system without proper oversight, there's a risk of sensitive data being mishandled or exposed, leading to potential breaches or compliance violations. For instance, a chatbot might ingest information included in an employee’s prompt; use it as training data; make it available to platform operators; and make it available to other users outside the company when answering their prompts. If the AI platform were to suffer a cyberattack, the data could also fall into cybercriminals' hands. Sharing such sensitive information with an LLM poses significant risks, including jeopardizing intellectual property, empowering competitors, violating data privacy regulations, eroding customer trust, and tarnishing the company’s reputation. 
- **Legal risks**: These materialize if shadow AI exposes the company to lawsuits or fines. Say the model advises leadership on business strategy. But the information is incorrect, and the company wastes a huge amount of money doing the wrong thing. Shareholders might sue. Lawsuits might also materialize if the shadow tool provides customers with bad advice generated by model drift or poisoned training data or if the model uses copyright-protected data for self-training. And, of course, violations of data privacy regulations could result in hefty legal penalties. 
- **Costs**: There can be wasteful or duplicative spending among shadow projects or between shadow and sanctioned ones. In some cases, shadow AI users may also waste money by failing to take advantage of volume and negotiated rates for similar, sanctioned technology. Consider, too, the opportunity cost stemming from shadow projects that ultimately fail because they do not follow company policies or good practices - that time and money could have been put toward other projects.  
- **Fragmentation and inconsistency**: Different departments or teams using disparate shadow AI tools can lead to inconsistencies in resource procurement, configuration and use.  
- **Control**: IT teams cannot see shadow IT resources, which means they can’t manage, organize and support them. 

## Unmasking shadow AI: how to get started

To address the challenges posed by shadow AI, companies need to implement robust governance frameworks and establish clear policies regarding the adoption and use of AI technologies. They should also encourage the collaboration between IT and business leaders to understand how various departments want to use AI. Additionally, centralizing AI deployment and management under the supervision of IT and data governance teams can help mitigate risks and ensure that AI initiatives contribute positively to the organization's overall success.
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However, as mentioned before, there is no guaranteed way to keep employees from using Generative AI to work more efficiently. Therefore, the most effective way to address Shadow IT is to provide an approved AI helpdesk platform. An AI employee helpdesk is a secure and always available support platform built for an AI-first world. Thanks to advanced language models, it offers dynamic, human-like conversations, seamlessly integrating with various communication channels and IT systems. It automates tasks and support resolution, and empowers employees to act, search, query, and generate content across a multitude of enterprise applications. Fueled by constantly improving generative models, AI-driven analytics for performance evaluation, and developer tools for customizable use cases, it's the future of assistance.  

## Addressing shadow IT challenges with an AI employee helpdesk

The AI helpdesk's swift and dependable issue resolution encourages employees to seek help from IT instead of resorting to unsafe fixes and shadow AI. Let's review how it addresses the main reasons why users resort to shadow AI in the first place. You will then understand why an AI employee helpdesk such as Gaspar AI can be your best ally in your fight against shadow IT.
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**1. Slow response times and lacking expertise** 

- **24/7 availability**: the AI helpdesk is available anytime, anywhere, so employees don’t have to rely on the agents’ work schedule or resort to unsecure fixes when the helpdesk team is not available. 
- **Instant resolution**: By automatically solving their most common issues, employees have no reason to seek help elsewhere. Also, by facilitating handoff to the right agent, they can resolve even the most complex issues easier and more quickly. 
- **Ease of use**: Thanks to LLM training, NLP and NLU, employees just talk to the AI helpdesk’s chatbot in everyday language on your company’s chat platform, e.g. Slack, MS Teams. They are instantly understood, engage in interactive conversations and get human-like answers. They now have one user-friendly, unified solution for their support. 
- **Accurate answers based on your company’s data**: All answers generated are precise and based on your company’s information, as opposed to using shadow AI. At Gaspar AI for instance, we use [Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/retrieval-augmented-generation-and-enterprise-helpdesk) which means that our language model generates answers based on your knowledge base. 
- **AI trained with sector-specific datasets**: This means that answers accurately depict your company’s specific environment and context. 

**2. No approved solutions for specific use cases**  

- **AI customization**: It’s very easy to build specific uses cases with an AI tool. With Gaspar AI for example, you can [automate workflows ](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/how-to-complete-employee-onboarding-in-under-one-minute)(e.g. employee onboarding) and connect systems without coding – just use our intuitive templates! 
- **Out-the-box integrations**: Most AI helpdesks come with ready-to-use integrations that offer solutions to the most common use cases.  

**3. No access to officially sanctioned solutions due to budget limitations** 

- **Low cost**: Contrary to what one would believe, an AI helpdesk can be a very cost-effective solution making it possible to be adopted at enterprise level. Gaspar AI, for example, has a cost of $4 per user monthly, therefore allowing even small companies to deploy it.   

**4. Limiting technological and tooling constraints of approved projects**

- **Scalability**: A well-chosen AI helpdesk is easy to scale and accommodate more use cases and increasing support demands.  
- **Flexibility**: AI employee helpdesks offer flexibility to connect with tools such as IT management systems and commonly used apps, covering most user needs. 
- **Multiple features**: A good AI helpdesk offers a wide variety of features such as issue resolution, ticket management, asset management, incident management, change management, business insights, analytics and reporting.  
 

## From shadow AI to safe solutions: harnessing the power of AI helpdesks

Security, IT and risk leaders should not expect shadow AI to go away any time soon. As new-generation LLMs become more numerous and diverse, there is every reason to expect shadow AI projects will multiply as well – an AI employee helpdesk is probably the safest and smartest solution. As generative AI usage becomes increasingly pervasive, companies will need to consider a broader strategy which will include adopting helpdesk tools that better meet business needs and encourage ethical and safe AI use. And data shows the effort is worth it. 76% of IT leaders believe GenAI will be significant if not transformative for their organizations, and 65% believe they will see meaningful results within the next year according to a [recent Dell survey](https://www.dell.com/en-us/perspectives/new-research-the-dell-genai-pulse-survey/?dgc=Af&cid=aithoughtleadership&lid=Forbes14).
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With an AI employee helpdesk such as Gaspar AI you can offer easy, instant, accurate and scalable support to end users minimizing their eagerness to seek solutions in unsafe places. You can rest assured that your company’s data and sensitive information will remain private. Any information collected from our customers is strictly confidential and will never be shared with other customers or utilized to train our generic AI model. The sole purpose of collecting these data is to enhance and personalize your individual model for an improved and tailored experience. What’s more, all generated answers and solutions adhere to existing permissions and access rights. Employees won’t be able to view or access information they are not supposed to.
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If you’d like to start addressing shadow AI projects today, you can [schedule a free demo](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request) where we will discuss your company-specific needs, show you around the platform and experience first-hand the magic of AI-powered support.
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_Citations:_

- _TechTarget, 10 top AI and machine learning trends for 2024, https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/tip/9-top-AI-and-machine-learning-trends_ 
- _Forbes, What Is Shadow AI And What Can IT Do About It https://www.forbes.com/sites/delltechnologies/2023/10/31/what-is-shadow-ai-and-what-can-it-do-about-it/_  
- _TechTarget, Shadow AI poses new generation of threats to enterprise IT, https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/Shadow-AI-poses-new-generation-of-threats-to-enterprise-IT#:~:text=Operational%20risks%20come%20in%20many,%2D%2D%20i.e.%2C%20generating%20false%20information_
- _EY, AI Anxiety in Business Survey October 2023, https://www.ey.com/en_us/consulting/businesses-can-stop-rising-ai-use-from-fueling-anxiety_
- _The Dell GenAI Pulse Survey October 2023, https://www.dell.com/en-us/perspectives/new-research-the-dell-genai-pulse-survey/?dgc=Af&cid=aithoughtleadership&lid=Forbes14_

How to address shadow AI risks with an AI employee helpdesk

Discover the impact of shadow AI and how AI employee helpdesks offer secure, scalable, and ethical solutions to mitigate risks and enhance support.

From Sales and Marketing to IT and beyond, AI helpdesks offer a plethora of benefits, streamlining operations, enhancing productivity, and elevating customer experiences across all departments within the enterprise. Let's explore how various departments can leverage AI helpdesks to drive innovation and efficiency. 

## IT Operations AI helpdesk use cases

An AI helpdesk can empower IT teams to better manage and respond to incidents, automate the ITSM process and optimize support operations. 

1. **Hardware provisioning**: Ensure all employees get the hardware they need when they need it. 
2. **Identity access management**: With an AI helpdesk, resetting passwords, giving access to groups and email lists or removing users from channels is as easy and quick as sending a message.  
3. **Retrieve network access details**: Allow employees to easily search for and retrieve details about their network access and permissions, simplifying IT operations. 
4. **Software provisioning**: Enable employees to have access to the right applications. 
5. **Account management**: Create new accounts, delete old ones, better manage existing ones. 
6. **Incident management and resolution**: AI helpdesks automate incident triage, diagnosis, and resolution processes by analyzing ticket data, system logs, and knowledge base articles. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, IT departments can categorize and prioritize incidents, suggest relevant solutions, and even automate resolution for common issues, thereby minimizing downtime. 
7. **ITSM automation**: AI helpdesks streamline operational workflows by automating routine tasks, assigning tickets, and managing resources efficiently. By intelligently routing requests, prioritizing tasks, and orchestrating workflows, operations teams can minimize manual intervention and reduce response times. 
8. **Planned maintenance notifications**: Keep employees informed about scheduled maintenance for IT systems and applications to reduce disturbance and downtime to a minimum. 
9. **System outage alerts**: Provide immediate alerts to IT teams and impacted employees whenever a critical system or application experiences downtime, facilitating rapid response and resolution. 
10. **Identify priority automation projects**: With AI-powered insights, IT Operations teams can prioritize projects that will have the highest impact on the business bottom line.  

## Sales AI helpdesk use cases

An AI helpdesk can offer multiple benefits to Sales teams, and be used across several cases:  

11. **Payment and credit policies lookup**: Instant access to the information salespeople are looking for. 
12. **Request contract approval**: Speed up decision-making from days to minutes with a streamlined approval process on one platform. 
13. **Ask about data retention policy**: With an AI helpdesk, sales employees can just ask a chatbot and instantly have a summary of all data retention policies. 
14. **Customer data lookup**: quickly find customer information, such as contact details and order history, to provide better customer service. 
15. **Find info about deadlines and goals**: Sales reps can ask a virtual agent about their personal sales deadlines and goals. 
16. **Find their contracts’ value**: Offer your Sales reps quick and easy access to information tailored specifically to their needs and sales contracts, such as deadlines, contract value, and more. 
17. **Deal milestone alerts**: Alert sales representatives upon reaching pivotal milestones in deals, such as contract signings or receipt of payments. 
18. **Meeting reminders**: Automated reminders to employees ahead of client meetings. 

## Marketing AI helpdesk use cases

By integrating with marketing platforms, an AI helpdesk can be used to better manage campaigns, analyze customer feedback, find marketing materials, and much more:  

19. **Find marketing materials**: Employees can just ask the AI helpdesk chatbot where to find the right marketing materials (e.g. launch presentation, flyer, product video, ad) for their campaign. It will direct them to the appropriate resources.  
20. **Marketing assets approval requests**: Facilitate and speed up the process of approving campaign materials – notify approvers on the chat platform when a new request needs their review and simplify the approval process.  
21. **Notify about campaign launch**: Send notifications to employees upon the launch of a new marketing campaign. 
22. **Customer feedback analysis**: AI helpdesks utilize natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to analyze customer feedback from various sources such as surveys, social media, and customer support tickets. By extracting insights, sentiment trends, and actionable feedback, marketers can refine messaging, improve campaign targeting, and enhance overall customer satisfaction. 
23. **Ask for event attendee list**: Help event coordinators retrieve a comprehensive list of attendees for specific events and their contact details. 
24. **Marketing assets’ inventory lookup**: Empower employees to efficiently search for marketing assets, such as brochures, banners or promotional items, and view their inventory level. 

## HR AI helpdesk use cases

An AI helpdesk can tackle routine tasks, while your team empowers your people to thrive.  

25. **Employee onboarding**: AI helpdesks streamline the employee onboarding process by automating all related processes and tasks, therefore freeing up the HR teams to engage with employees and offer them excellent experience. 
26. **Performance management**: An AI helpdesk facilitates performance reviews. It enables HR teams to collect feedback from managers, peers, and subordinates through automated workflows and surveys. It can then provide valuable insights, identify development areas, and support ongoing performance improvement initiatives within the organization. 
27. **Performance review notifications**: Automatically prompt employees and managers when performance reviews are due. 
28. **New hire orientation checklist**: Send a daily email to new employees featuring a checklist of tasks necessary to complete onboarding, ensuring all steps are completed promptly. 
29. **Benefits enrollment alerts**: Inform employees when the benefits enrollment period starts, directing them to relevant forms and resources to select their preferred benefits. 
30. **Approve time-off requests**: Make it easy for HR teams to approve employee requests for time off.  
31. **Handle HR policies and payroll inquiries**: An AI helpdesk automates answering for HR policy and payroll related questions, reducing HR teams’ manual workload. 

## Finance AI helpdesk use cases
 
Optimize your financial operations with an AI helpdesk, making tasks like budget management, purchase approval, and expense tracking effortless: 

32. **Approve purchase requests**: Facilitate the swift review and approval of purchase requests, thereby optimizing the procurement workflow and guaranteeing prompt delivery of essential goods and services. 
33. **Check payments’ status**: AI helpdesks enable Finance teams to easily check the status of any upcoming or pending payments. 
34. **Deadline alert for budget submissions**: Automate reminders to department heads regarding budget submission deadlines. 
35. **Payment deadline notification**: Notify Finance employees when a payment deadline approaches, facilitating timely payments and preventing late fees.  
36. **Financial information lookup**: An AI helpdesk can enable employees to easily find reports, files, balance sheets and more, without having to spend hours searching. 
37. **Invoice approval prompt**: Notify Finance managers when an invoice awaits their approval, averting delays in payment processing.  
38. **Expense tracking**: Better track expense reports’ status and send automated reminders to employees to submit their reports before the deadline, streamlining the reimbursement process.  

## Legal AI helpdesk use cases

AI makes research and document review easier. Legal teams can use it to streamline workflows, mitigate legal exposure, and ensure adherence to regulatory requirements. 

39. **E-discovery**: AI helpdesks enable legal teams to sift through large volumes of electronic data to find relevant documents quickly and efficiently. 
40. **Lookup legal information**: Provide Legal employees with a convenient way to find relevant legal and previous cases’ info. 

## Supply Chain Management AI helpdesk use cases

AI helpdesks streamline procurement processes and facilitate supply chain optimization through intelligent automation and predictive analytics.  

41. **Purchase order approval requests**: Speed-up PO approval process by informing managers promptly when a new purchase order needs their approval. 
42. **Find vendor details**: An AI helpdesk can empower employees to easily access vendor information, including contact details, payment terms, and purchase history. 
43. **Procurement policies lookup**: Easily find and understand all policies related to procurement, ensuring compliance. 
44. **View supplier contracts**: AI helpdesks enable employees to easily access procurement contracts, such as supplier agreements, service-level agreements, and nondisclosure agreements, along with their respective terms and conditions. 

## AI helpdesk use cases for all employees

I just described 44 AI helpdesk use cases across different departments, and there are so many more. Expect new use cases as AI is progressing, but to finish I will describe some more that are relevant to all employees no matter their function: 

45. **Request time off**: AI helpdesks streamline the time-off approval process and allow for quicker approvals. 
46. **Access health insurance information**: Offer employees a straightforward way to retrieve critical information regarding their health insurance benefits. 
47. **Review retirement plan balance**: Enable employees to promptly check their retirement account balance and access important information regarding their retirement plan.  
48. **Request access to folders**: Employees just ask the AI helpdesk chatbot for access to specific folders.  
49. **Get how-to instructions**: Empower your workforce to instantly find the information they are looking for: IT troubleshooting, VPN and network access, security FAQs, and much more.  
50. **Find out PTO balance**: Offer employees quick and easy access to information tailored specifically to their needs and employment situation. 


The potential of AI helpdesks for the enterprise is huge – the use cases are essentially limitless. Now is the moment to strategically assess where integrating helpdesk capabilities can make a significant impact. Which teams stand to benefit most? What workflows require conversational enhancements?
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At Gaspar AI, we're spearheading the AI-driven workforce revolution. Our advanced Generative AI helpdesk streamlines tasks, automates workflows and fosters seamless interactions across your systems. **Let's explore tailored use cases for your business needs. [Schedule a live product tour](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request) of Gaspar AI and experience everything it can offer you in action.**  

AI helpdesk use cases across the enterprise

Unlock enterprise efficiency with an AI helpdesk. Discover how you can use it across all departments to increase productivity and streamline workflows.

50 AI helpdesk use cases across the enterprise 

IT operations and helpdesk support teams face a constant influx of inquiries and issues, often struggling to keep pace with the volume of requests. It's indicative that ticket volume has increased +35% in the last 2 years. This high workload can lead to delays in response times and challenges in providing timely assistance to employees (resolution time has increased by +57%), impacting overall support efficiency and employee satisfaction. At the same time, continuously answering the same questions and performing repetitive tasks that add zero value prevents IT operations and helpdesk teams from working on high-impact, strategic products that can positively change company processes and boost the bottom line.
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With Gaspar AI’s IT helpdesk platform, you can offer automated IT support solutions that improve your IT operations' efficiency, supercharge your teams’ productivity and free them up.
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An AI IT helpdesk is a system that uses artificial intelligence technologies to provide support and assistance for IT-related issues and queries. Instead of relying solely on human agents, AI-powered helpdesks are trained with LLMs and leverage natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and other AI techniques to understand and respond to user inquiries automatically. These systems can handle a variety of tasks, including troubleshooting technical problems, providing guidance on software or hardware issues, offering self-service options for common queries, and escalating complex issues to human agents when necessary.
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AI IT helpdesks can improve efficiency by providing instant responses and resolving issues without human intervention, reducing the workload on human support staff and offering round-the-clock assistance. They can also analyze data to identify trends, optimize workflows, and improve the overall quality of IT support services.
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In this blog post, we will present some of the most common uses of Gaspar AI by IT operations and helpdesk teams.  

## Smart IT helpdesk automation and workload optimization

Automate repetitive tasks and offer instant, no-humans-involved solutions, while ensuring friendly, human-like interactions that enhance user experience.

1. **Automatically reset passwords**: 20% to 50% of all IT helpdesk tickets each year are for password resets according to the Gartner Group, and password tickets consume 31% to 40% of the help desk's time. Thanks to Gaspar AI they can be [automated](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/how-to-get-rid-of-password-reset-requests-in-ten-seconds), saving helpdesk teams valuable time as they don’t need to get involved in the process anymore.

2. **Give access to folders and calendars**: It often happens that an employee might not have access to some folders or calendars they need. They can ask Gaspar, our AI chatbot, to give them access, and it will forward the request on Slack or MS Teams to the right person. They will approve or reject the request, and the employee will receive an update. No need for IT teams to intervene!  

3. **Provision hardware**: Ensure all employees get the hardware they need when they need it. Employees easily request it on Slack or MS Teams, and your IT team can then handle it. 

4. **Provision software in seconds**: Employees change roles, departments, projects – this means that they might need new licenses for apps they did not use before. Your helpdesk team can enable them to access them effortlessly. Again, everything is just a question away, and the whole approval process happens on Slack and MS Teams. 

5. **Email list, group and channel management**: With our AI-powered IT helpdesk, giving access to groups and email lists or removing users from channels is as easy and quick as sending a message.   

6. **Account management**: IT helpdesk teams can create new accounts, delete old ones and better manage existing ones in minutes by automating the process. 

7. **Offer instant IT info summaries to employees without getting involved**: Often, useful IT information is buried deep within files and systems and is hard to access, so employees keep contacting your helpdesk team about it. Gaspar AI empowers your workforce to instantly find it: IT troubleshooting, how-to questions, privacy policy, security FAQs and much more. Everything employees need is right at their fingertips, just a question away from our AI chatbot on Slack or MS Teams!  

8. **Know their projects’ deadlines**: Keeping up with project deadlines is crucial. With Gaspar AI it’s also super easy. IT operations and helpdesk employees ask our AI chatbot to give them an update and they instantly know what’s urgent and what’s not.  

9. **Automate onboarding and offboarding**: IT operations and helpdesk teams can use our no-code templates to craft custom workflows that automate these processes. Whenever there is a new hire or an employee leaves the company, they can deploy these custom workflows and make the procedure easier and more secure.  

## ITSM made easy

With traditional IT support or ITSM systems, users must contact IT operations and helpdesk teams via email or call, or log into the ITSM portal, raise a ticket and accurately describe their issue. Agents must manually review the tickets to prioritize and address incoming requests, ensure additional information is added to the ticket and continuously update its status. With our AI-powered IT helpdesk, your teams can now effortlessly create and manage tickets while information is automatically synced with your ITSM.  

1. **Offer quick and easy ticket creation on Slack or MS Teams**: For issues that need human attention, employees simply fill in a form on Slack or MS Teams to describe their issue (they can even attach screenshots and images), and a ticket is created on your ticketing platform. Your agents don’t need to go through emails or different systems, or even do any manual work: they automatically have the info they need on their ITSM and on their Slack or MS Teams interface. 

2. **Ticket management on Slack or MS Teams**: IT agents can see their tickets’ status, any pending approval requests, daily statistics and SLAs on Slack and MS Teams at any time. And while they are working on resolving tickets, their status is updated and notifications are sent automatically to employees on Slack and MS teams. 

3. **Intelligent ticket triage**: Whenever a ticket is raised, agents must manually categorize, prioritize, and assign the right resources. Gaspar AI’s IT helpdesk helps you promptly manage tickets. With its NLP capabilities, it analyzes the tickets, categorizes them, and assigns them to the right agent (depending on their expertise and availability). Moreover, it asks follow-up questions and interacts with the user to get more information for prompt resolution and accurate categorization. 

## Enhanced knowledge management
 
Gaspar AI integrates with your knowledge base and internal repositories to automatically index and ingest information, to then match employees' requests with concise solutions.  

1. **Enable easy, no-search knowledge access from multiple sources**: Gaspar AI integrates with knowledge bases (such as Confluence, Notion, Coda, Helpjuice and more), internal sources and repositories (e.g. Sharepoint, Dropbox, Google Docs) to ingest and index information, and then answer employee questions without human intervention and with no need to look for it.  

2. **Identify knowledge gaps**: Your helpdesk team gets information on their Admin Hub about the most frequent issues and questions. They can thus identify whether there are gaps in the company’s knowledge base which make it impossible for employees to self-serve their requests and solve their problems.  

3. **Knowledge base augmentation**: Based on these gaps, IT teams can fast-track the relevant content creation to enrich the company’s knowledge base and offer more opportunities for self-service. 

## Impactful business insights

With Gaspar AI, your IT helpdesk teams can discover high-impact automation use cases and get clear performance metrics. 

1. **Identify priority automation projects**: Gaspar AI’s IT helpdesk platform uncovers the most common employee issues, what’s hurting their productivity, which automations or content will unblock them. It uses large language models to break down ticket data and present the areas of service that need the most improvement. Thus, IT support teams can identify which automation opportunities and process improvements will have the biggest business impact and prioritize them.  

2. **Track key IT metrics**: On Gaspar AI’s Admin Hub, IT helpdesk managers can track their chatbot’s and platform’s performance. They also monitor which features, capabilities, and resources employees find valuable, compare performance over time and take data-driven action.  

## What are the benefits of Gaspar AI for IT helpdesk teams?

The importance of IT support teams cannot be overstated. They have multiple tasks to perform, ranging from tactical to strategic, all of which play an important role in the continuation of business and employee satisfaction. In the hybrid work world of nowadays, the IT helpdesk’s role is indispensable even in ensuring day-to-day productivity. However, IT support’s importance is often underestimated, and these teams are frequently understaffed. As requests and projects get multiplied by the minute, it is extremely important to find ways to enhance IT support.
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Gaspar AI does exactly this: by automating the mundane tasks and offering instant resolution to more than 40% of employee issues, it frees up IT teams’ time and empowers them to be more productive. Gaspar, our AI Virtual Agent, resolves employee issues directly on Slack, MS Teams and JSM support portal, and automates tasks without human intervention. Your busy teams no longer answer the same questions over and over and have fewer tickets to deal with.
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This leads to faster and low-cost resolution for all issues: Gaspar solves employee requests instantly and accurately, in natural language, deflecting a high number of tickets. Fewer tickets to be handled means faster resolution time even for requests that need to be addressed by human agents. It also means that IT operations’ costs decrease, as our platform minimizes the resources needed for each issue and the downtime costs. An employee helpdesk ticket costs just $1 when you deploy Gaspar AI, as opposed to $26.51 on average when you don’t.
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Finally, with Gaspar AI you can improve the perception of IT company-wide: 1/5 of employees claim tech issues and resolution times are the biggest challenges. With Gaspar AI, you can offer fast and accurate solutions to their most frequent problems, so that IT becomes their best partner. And with our Business Insights and Performance Metrics you can fill in knowledge gaps and prioritize automation opportunities, greatly impacting employee satisfaction with your department’s services. 

## How do I set up Gaspar AI?

Just start a free 21-day trial by filling in the form here. Then, log in with your SSO- e.g. Google, Microsoft 365. A member of our team will contact you to onboard you. Yes, it’s that simple!
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If you are curious to learn more about Gaspar AI, you can **schedule a free, personalized demo [here](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request)**. During the meeting, we can discuss your needs and you can see exactly how your helpdesk/IT team and employees can use the platform. 

Struggling with overwhelming IT support demands? Gaspar AI’s IT helpdesk automates most routine tasks and streamlines processes. Discover all the ways it helps!

Why your IT helpdesk team needs Gaspar AI

Employee engagement is a hot topic right now. And rightfully so. It has taken a hard hit during the last years with worldwide resignations, mass layoffs, and quiet quitting. Based on [this Gallup report](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/468233/employee-engagement-needs-rebound-2023.aspx), we’re experiencing the lowest ratio of engaged to actively disengaged U.S. employees since 2013. Why? Starting in early 2020, employees faced a rollercoaster of changes — from sudden office closures to navigating the challenges of remote work in isolation, to a gradual return to an office environment very different from what they once knew. Stress, uneasiness and loneliness are just a few of the emotions employees are experiencing.
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As a result, employees began to “check out” at an alarming rate: out of the organizations [surveyed by WorkTango and HR.com](https://www.worktango.com/resources/reports/the-future-of-employee-engagement-2023-research-report), only 11% say that the majority (81% to 100%) of their workforce is well engaged. And two-fifths admit that employee engagement has been lower over the last year. While employees continue to fulfill their job responsibilities, they are not going above and beyond like engaged individuals. Simply put, they were clocking in their hours, but not investing their energy or passion. And that’s not laziness as one might say. Rather, it is a response to the pervasive feelings of undervaluation and unappreciation in the workplace.
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And this response costs a lot: [employee disengagement costs the U.S. economy $450-550 billion every year](https://www.conference-board.org/topics/dna-of-engagement/dna-of-engagement-2017-engagement-ecosystem). That’s partly because employees’ lack of motivation and lower sense of responsibility results in lower productivity, errors in work, missed deadlines, poor customer service, and lower profits. A single disengaged employee can cost a company about $3,400 in lost productivity for every $10,000 in salary. It’s also because many disengaged employees quit their jobs at some point, leaving the employer to reinvest in hiring, onboarding, and training. Many of them even spread negativity through word of mouth, harming an organization’s chances of attracting quality hires.
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As companies strive to create an environment that fosters employee engagement and fulfillment, the integration of Artificial Intelligence can be a game-changer. In this blog post, we'll delve into how AI technologies can be used by HR to create and adopt practices that positively impact employee engagement, ultimately enhancing overall workplace satisfaction. 

## What is employee engagement and why it’s important?

Employee engagement embodies the commitment, extra effort, passion, and zeal that employees have for their work and their company. It reflects a deep connection that motivates them. Engaged employees show a drive to excel, derive satisfaction from their contributions, and foster a deep sense of loyalty towards their employer. They are wholeheartedly dedicated to their job, actively contribute to company success, and are willing to go above and beyond what is expected of them. They don’t just show up for work and perform their job, they invest personally in it and genuinely care about performing well within the organization.
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Employee engagement is crucial for creating a positive and productive work environment, leading to good organizational performance. It significantly impacts business success, including increased productivity, higher retention rates, lower turnover, decreased burnout and higher profitability. According to a [study conducted by Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/resources/pdfs/comm/achievers/hbr_achievers_report_sep13.pdf), 71% of executives verify that employee engagement is a huge contributor to organizational success: 

- **Increased productivity**: Engaged workers are more likely to be motivated, productive, and committed to their work. They also collaborate better, share ideas and knowledge, and take ownership of their work, resulting in higher quality work. 
- **Higher retention rates**: According to the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology at Work, an engaged employee is 87% less likely to leave the company. This reduces employee turnover costs.  
- **Increased revenue**: [Research by Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/241649/employee-engagement-rise.aspx) concluded that highly engaged employees contribute to 21% higher profitability (think about increased productivity and lower turnover). This is also in part due to higher customer loyalty: Gallup also found that improving employee engagement also leads to a 10% rise in customer ratings and a 20% rise in sales. Engaged employees are more likely to provide exceptional customer service and create a positive customer experience. 
- **Reduced absenteeism**: Engaged employees are more likely to feel connected to their job and their company, resulting in stronger commitment to attendance and higher accountability. [Research by Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/241649/employee-engagement-rise.aspx) shows that when employee engagement is high, companies experience a 41% reduction in absenteeism. 
- **Decreased burnout**: Employees who exhibit lower levels of engagement are more prone to experiencing heightened levels of stress. This stress, in turn, harms their engagement, establishing a self-perpetuating cycle that can be challenging to disrupt. 

However, fostering employee engagement requires more than just financial incentives or perks. It involves creating a culture that values and respects individuals, provides meaningful work, encourages open communication, and supports professional development. By investing in employee engagement, companies can unlock the full potential of their workforce and achieve long-term success.  

## What drives employee engagement?

Employees need more than a fleeting warm-fuzzy feeling and a decent salary (even if it helps them respond positively to employee engagement survey questions) to truly engage and excel in their roles.
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People want purpose and meaning from their work. They want to be known for what makes them unique. This is what drives employee engagement: meaningful work. This involves aligning an individual's skills and passions with their job responsibilities, enabling them to see the direct impact of their contributions on the organization's goals. Recognizing talented and high-performing employees, and their big and small accomplishments, is also essential for employee engagement.
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And they want relationships, particularly with a manager who can coach them to the next level. This is who drives employee engagement: a manager who gives them autonomy, empowers them, has a solid plan to help them develop professionally and provides them with a robust feedback loop.
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So how can AI be used by HR to positively affect these employee engagement drivers? 

## Using AI to boost employee engagement

The first step to enhancing employee engagement is for leaders to understand the current status. AI tools can delve into employee data to discern individual needs and preferences. AI algorithms analyze sentiments and behavior patterns, unveiling the factors that drive engagement and those that hinder it. With this newfound insight, HR professionals can tailor employee experiences, creating a workplace where individuals feel valued and heard.
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Let’s see how they can use AI to reshape their practices in the main areas that drive and boost employee engagement.  

### Meaningful work

- **Aligning skills and passions to job responsibilities**: This starts at the recruiting stage and sets the right tone from the start. AI algorithms can analyze job requirements, candidate profiles and interests, and conduct personality evaluation based on various data points such as resumes, social media activity, and online assessments. They can then suggest candidates whose skills, preferences and passions closely align with the job responsibilities, increasing the probability of high employee engagement. While on the job, the same AI tools can be used to suggest the right fit when thinking about promotions and cross-company moves, ensuring better alignment between employee “wants” and company needs.  
- **Removing unnecessary tasks with automation**: Unnecessary tasks not only impede efficiency and profit but are also frustrating for employees. Mundane routine tasks and extra steps prompt employees to switch on cruise control, which essentially means they’re not engaging with their work. For example, if an IT helpdesk agent must log every minor change made to a ticket, they’ll probably spend twice as long on resolving it while being half as invested – and wasting precious time that could be dedicated to the actual issue resolution. Automating the process — in this case, with an [AI helpdesk](https://www.gaspar.ai/) that offers smart ticketing, automated tracking and status updates — allows the helpdesk agent to focus on what has a real impact: resolving the request. 

### Recognition

- **Performance analytics**: AI can analyze performance data to identify trends, patterns, and areas of excellence within the company. This insight can inform strategic recognition initiatives and help leaders identify high-performing teams or individuals deserving of special recognition.  
- **Regular recognition and achievements celebration**: AI can automate the administration of recognition programs by tracking and analyzing employee achievements, milestones, or positive contributions. This automation empowers leaders to acknowledge achievements regularly rather than quarterly or yearly. Regular celebrations demonstrate that employee contributions are pivotal, nurturing a positive and engaged workforce.  
- **Offering personalized rewards**: AI can help tailor benefits and recognition initiatives to match employees’ preferences, communication styles, and cultural backgrounds. This ensures that recognition efforts resonate with each employee, increasing their effectiveness. The result is a workforce that feels cherished and inspired, igniting a blaze of enthusiasm that fuels productivity.  

### Autonomy

- **Effortless and autonomous issue resolution**: Chatbots integrated in the company’s chat platform can offer [automated resolution to common employee issues](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/ai-employee-helpdesk-on-slack-msteams-jira), such as password resets, and instant approvals for access requests, time-off and much more. By having their issues instantly and autonomously resolved, employees can get back to work immediately and be more productive. They also feel less stressed and frustrated, increasing their satisfaction and desire to remain in the company. 
- **Easy access to company resources**: AI helpdesks serve as knowledge hubs offering instant responses to employee queries regarding things that matter to them: how-to info, IT troubleshooting, HR policies, benefits, and procedures. This enables them to perform their work autonomously without having to constantly rely on others for answers. 
- **Flexible work arrangements**: AI can optimize scheduling and resource allocation to accommodate flexible work arrangements such as remote work, flexible hours, or job sharing. By leveraging AI-powered scheduling tools, employees have more autonomy to manage their work schedules and achieve a better work-life balance. 

### Professional growth

- **Curated learning plans**: AI helpdesks can offer personalized recommendations for employee development and learning opportunities based on individual skillsets, career aspirations, and performance evaluations. AI curates relevant content and training resources, ensuring that employees are equipped to conquer any challenge that comes their way. This promotes continuous learning and growth within the company and makes employees happier and more engaged. 
- **Crafting personalized employee journeys**: AI-powered platforms analyze the employees’ skills, interests and performance, and match them with the most suitable career paths, roles, or opportunities within the company, greatly enhancing their engagement. AI-driven career development can also use data visualization, gamification, or storytelling to help employees explore and visualize their career options, scenarios, and outcomes.  

### Feedback

- **Real-time feedback and assessment**: AI-powered assessment tools can provide real-time feedback on employee performance, giving them timely insights and constructive critiques. They can identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This feedback can be used to personalize learning experiences, target skill development efforts, and track progress over time. This fosters a sense of ownership and accountability, empowering individuals to take control of their development and reach new heights of excellence. 

## The transformative power of AI

Mastering employee engagement nowadays is paramount. Employees who feel that their work is purposeful and that they are appreciated will be more engaged than those who don't, driving business success. Companies and HR teams that understand that AI can have a huge, positive effect on employee engagement, and adopt AI-powered technologies will have a great advantage. By better matching employee interests and passions to roles, responsibilities and projects, automating boring, non-impactful tasks, regularly recognizing good performers and crafting personalized employee journeys and rewards, AI transforms employee engagement. The possibilities for an engaged and inspired workforce are infinite!
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_Citations_

- _https://industrytechinsights.com/ai-takes-charge-how-hr-tech-is-redefining-employee-engagement/_
- _https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2GF5ZESL&ct=240131&st=sb_ 
- _https://www.gallup.com/workplace/468233/employee-engagement-needs-rebound-2023.aspx_
- _https://www.worktango.com/resources/reports/the-future-of-employee-engagement-2023-research-report_ 
- _https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374327540_Employee_engagement_and_organizational_performance_
- _https://www.shiftbase.com/glossary/employee-engagement_

AI HR technologies for employee engagement

Learn how to use AI technologies for HR to reignite post-pandemic employee engagement! Discover game-changing strategies in this insightful guide.

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