In the last years, employee support costs have soared to record highs: the average helpdesk ticket cost is $26.51, a 30% increase vs two years ago, leading to greatly increased operational costs. The Mean Time to Resolve has increased to 9.72 hours, while the days tickets are backlogged are an average 12.1 now – resulting in high downtime costs. This is just a preview of how much agents’ and employees’ productivity hurts due to inefficient support – let alone the missed opportunities for revenue generation. Productivity loss ultimately leads to higher business costs, damaging the company’s profitability.
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That’s why companies are now turning to Generative AI: AI-powered solutions offer instant employee support and enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the employee experience. Let's delve into how Gaspar AI, our Generative AI helpdesk, can significantly cut the costs of your company’s employee support. 

## Eliminate Level 1 support issues

Gaspar AI automates the resolution of the most common issues faced by employees. From mundane tasks like password resets and account unlocks to more intricate matters such as accessing specific folders or editing email lists and groups, Gaspar AI ensures these L1 issues vanish into thin air, along with their cost. Our Generative AI helpdesk solution leads to significant savings in labor costs, as it promotes self-service solutions where there is no need for human support agents to intervene.
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By instantly resolving 40% of routine issues via automation or by surfacing the most relevant solutions from various systems and knowledge bases, Gaspar AI empowers employees to address common requests independently. This not only reduces the burden on the helpdesk but also minimizes downtime and opportunity costs. For example, delays in resolving technical issues that can easily be autonomously addressed may prevent employees from accessing critical systems or tools, hampering their productivity and hindering business operations.  

## Maximize ROI on your existing investments

Investing in self-service resources is a common strategy for helpdesks aiming to empower employees and reduce ticket volume. Yet, without proper guidance, employees may still resort to submitting tickets for even the most basic issues. Gaspar AI addresses this issue head-on by meticulously combing through all available resources within the organization to provide tailored solutions. By leveraging existing investments in ITSM, Identity and Access Management systems, and knowledge bases through seamless integrations, Gaspar AI ensures that every support dollar yields tangible returns. 

## Offer 24/7 employee support at no extra cost

Unlike traditional human-operated helpdesks that work within specific business hours, Generative AI helpdesks are available round-the-clock. Employees can access support whenever they encounter an issue, no matter the time. This not only improves employee satisfaction by providing timely assistance but also reduces the need for additional staff to cover extended support hours, cutting all related costs.
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At the same time, it helps reduce downtime costs: every minute of downtime due to IT issues can result in lost productivity and revenue for businesses. By offering instantaneous responses and 24/7 availability, Gaspar AI minimizes downtime and its associated costs. By resolving issues quickly and efficiently, it helps companies maintain operational continuity and avoid the financial repercussions of extended downtime. 

## Streamline the ticket lifecycle

Gaspar AI accelerates the entire ticket lifecycle even for complex issues requiring expert attention. Our AI chatbot facilitates handoff to human agents: it helps users create a ticket by simply filling in a form on Slack or MS Teams, and then routes it to the right agent, alongside with any useful information and categorization. It sends notifications when needed and allows end users and helpdesk agents to follow up and check the status either on the ITSM platform or on Slack and Teams, until the ticket is resolved. This automation helps close the tickets faster, and minimizes the time and resources spent on escalations, resulting in cost savings for companies.  

## Take command of software spend

The inefficiencies surrounding software licenses can lead to significant financial waste for large companies. Gaspar AI empowers organizations to take control of their software spend by provisioning licenses instantly, just by requesting it from our Virtual Agent. It also accelerates the process of obtaining the necessary approvals and helps reclaim unused licenses. This approach not only reduces costs but also ensures that employees have timely access to the software they require to excel in their roles. 

## Scale employee support with no additional spend

Gaspar AI’s Generative AI helpdesk offers scalability and flexibility to adapt to changing business needs and fluctuating support demands. Whether supporting a small team or a large enterprise, our AI-powered platform can efficiently handle a high volume of support requests without compromising on quality or performance. This scalability ensures that companies can effectively manage support costs without sacrificing service quality or needing additional headcount.

## Cut down your costs with Gaspar AI's Generative AI helpdesk

Gaspar AI offers an intuitive solution that addresses common challenges while driving significant cost savings. By automating routine tasks, enhancing support quality, maximizing ROI on existing investments, empowering employees with self-service solutions, streamlining ticket lifecycles, and taking command of software spend, Gaspar AI paves the way for a more efficient and effective support ecosystem. An employee helpdesk ticket costs just $1 when you deploy Gaspar AI, as opposed to $26.51 on average when you don’t. The choice is yours: do you want to keep spending your precious IT budget on non-value-adding projects, or finally start implementing high-impact activities?
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If you’d like to learn more about cutting down your helpdesk costs while improving your employee support operations and experience, [try Gaspar AI for free](https://www.gaspar.ai/free-trial-signup) or [schedule a free demo](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request). 

_*Source: https://www.metricnet.com/_  

Slash support costs in half with a Generative AI helpdesk

Learn all the different ways our Generative AI helpdesk can help you reduce your employee support costs and decrease your ticket cost to $1. Read our blog!

Slash support costs in half with our Generative AI helpdesk

By seamlessly integrating our AI employee helpdesk with Dropbox, you enjoy powerful AI capabilities that enhance productivity and collaboration for both helpdesk teams and end users. With automated Dropbox account management and improved knowledge management, your support team gains valuable time for impactful initiatives and your employees work better. Let’s explore how you can make your business operations more efficient and enhance employee knowledge access and sharing by connecting Gaspar AI and Dropbox. 

## Automate and streamline approvals

Gaspar AI makes accessing the right groups and folders within Dropbox effortless while maintaining security. It operates seamlessly within Microsoft Teams or Slack, where both the requester and the approver receive real-time updates and notifications. The requester just needs to ask our Generative AI chatbot for access, and the approver will receive the request to either approve or reject it on Slack or Teams. 

- Group Management: Gaspar AI streamlines group management by automating user additions in and removals from Dropbox groups, guaranteeing accurate access rights at any time.  
- Folder Management: By automating folder access approvals, Gaspar AI ensures that authorized individuals have the required permissions and that shared files are only accessed by those they should.  

 
## Automate account management

Gaspar AI's Workflow Automation streamlines team operations by automating repetitive tasks. It simplifies user account management in Dropbox, empowering administrators to seamlessly add or remove accounts, ensuring organizational needs are met with precision and consistency. 


## Create and enrich your company’s knowledge

If you use Dropbox to store your company’s knowledge articles, Gaspar AI detects gaps in your files by analyzing actual employee inquiries and recommends creating relevant content to fill these voids. Additionally, it assesses the quality and depth of your internal information, providing insights into areas that require enhancement. This proactive approach ensures that organizational knowledge stays updated and thorough, promoting ongoing refinement and progress. 

 
## Offer instant answers based on your Dropbox knowledge

Gaspar AI seamlessly integrates with Dropbox, accesses files stored there and ingests knowledge content to generate precise, human-like responses. From IT troubleshooting to HR policies, users receive timely and accurate answers. Each response is backed by thorough source citations, ensuring reliability.  

 
## Gaspar AI’s employee helpdesk and Dropbox collaboration redefines efficiency

By integrating Gaspar AI with Dropbox you elevate your business efficiency with Generative AI and maximize your existing application’s capabilities. In just a few clicks you get better knowledge management and sharing, automated answers based on your internal files and faster folder access, ensuring a very high return on your Dropbox and Gaspar AI investments.
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If you’d like to learn more, you can [schedule a free, personalized demo](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request) and discuss your specific needs. 

Dropbox integration for better knowledge management and sharing

Improve your company’s knowledge management and business efficiency by integrating Dropbox with the Gaspar AI helpdesk. Discover more in our blog!

Gaspar AI and Dropbox for better knowledge management and sharing

Employee support is getting tougher: multiple systems that are hard to use, different time zones and locations, unavailability of helpdesk teams when needed, slow responses. What’s the best thing you can do so that your employees get the help they need exactly when they need it? Offer them Gaspar AI, our best-in-class Generative AI helpdesk solution! It automatically solves at least 40% of helpdesk issues, automates repetitive processes, is available 24/7 and offers accurate answers to more than 85% of their questions instantly.  

## First, what is Gaspar AI?

Gaspar AI is a secure and always available Generative AI helpdesk platform that uses AI for smarter and more efficient employee support. Thanks to advanced language models, it offers dynamic, human-like conversations, seamlessly integrating with various communication channels such as Slack and MS Teams, commonly used apps 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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It features a Generative AI Virtual Agent, no-code workflows to automate repetitive processes and an Admin Hub for your IT and helpdesk admins to review everything support-related.
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Gaspar, our AI chatbot, is available on Slack, MS Teams and the Jira SM support portal. It makes it smooth and easy for employees to solve their issues in seconds by simply having a conversation. It is trained with best-in-class LLMs and uses Natural Language Processing to understand employee questions' context and intent. Our advanced dialog management capabilities ensure that employees have natural, human-like, interactive conversations. Gaspar can dynamically ask follow-up questions and combine multiple plugins until users get accurate solutions. 


## Using Gaspar AI for employee support

Gaspar AI seamlessly integrates with your favorite tools to empower your teams with 100+ automations across different departments and systems. Gaspar AI is the simplest way for your employees to get support: one unified, easy-to-use solution, with no need to switch apps, learn coding or use complicated systems. They simply talk to our AI chatbot on Slack or MS Teams and have their issue addressed promptly. Employees can thus perform their tasks better; find information they need faster; and be more productive.
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Here are some of the most common uses of Gaspar AI by employees: 

### 1. Instantly unblock access to their account
It happens very often – an employee wants to do their job only to find out they are locked out of some systems. With Gaspar AI it is extremely easy to reset their password without the IT and helpdesk team getting involved. The process is very streamlined: employees ask Gaspar to reset their password for said system or application. Our AI chatbot identifies the user and provides a temporary password which the employee can then replace with their chosen one. Instead of having to stay idle for hours, they get back to work immediately.  

### 2. Find out their PTO balance in a sec
Employees can ask Gaspar a simple question about their remaining paid time off (as simple as “what’s my PTO balance?”) and get an answer instantly. They can then go on and organize their holidays! 

### 3. Easily request time off
Requesting time off with Gaspar AI is as smooth as a summer breeze! Employees send their request to our AI chatbot on Slack or MS Teams e.g. “I want to take time off May 2-7". It then asks their manager to approve or decline it – again on Slack or MS Teams. Once the request is handled, the employee is updated – and in the meantime they can track its status.  

### 4. Access the folders they need effortlessly
It often happens that an employee might not have access to some folders they need. They can ask Gaspar to give them access to the specific folders, and our AI chatbot will forward the request on Slack or MS Teams to the right person. They will again approve or reject the request, and the employee will receive an update.   

### 5. Instantly find information they need to do their work
Often, useful information is buried deep within files and systems and is hard to access - Gaspar AI empowers your workforce to instantly find it: HR policies, how-to questions, relocation policy, travel policies, company holiday schedules, benefits updates, payroll inquiries and much more. Everything employees need is right at their fingertips, just a question away on Slack or MS Teams!  

### 6. Know their projects’ deadlines
Keeping up with project deadlines is crucial. With Gaspar AI it’s also super easy. Employees ask our AI chatbot to give them an update and they instantly know what’s urgent and what’s not.  

### 7. Request a new laptop
When in need to change laptops, employees easily request a new one on Slack or MS Teams, and your IT team can then handle it. 

### 8. Access required software applications in seconds
Employees change roles, departments, projects – this means that they might need new licenses for apps they did not use before. Again, everything is just a question away, and the whole approval process happens on Slack and MS Teams.  

### 9. Open a ticket on Slack or MS Teams with no need to switch apps
It happens - some issues are far too complex to solve without human intervention. But fear not: Gaspar AI facilitates ticket creation and handoff to the right agent. 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. It is then routed to the right human agent to be taken care of. 

### 10. Send automated reminders and updates
Lots of emails stay unread in our inboxes, so Gaspar AI ensures that the important ones are not. Employees can create announcements about anything they like right on Slack and MS Teams: office lunches, team reviews, reminders about expenses submission, updates about new product launches and campaigns, and so much more.   

### 11. Rate the IT support experience
What’s not measured can’t be improved. Whenever a request is resolved via an agent, a 5-star rating scale pops up on Slack and MS Teams. Just a click, and the employee rates their experience by sharing their satisfaction level. Thus, IT teams know how they perform and can focus on the areas that need improvement.  

### 12. Create groups and email lists
With Gaspar AI, employees easily create a new group or email list by providing information such as name, purpose, members, and any necessary permissions to our chatbot. 

### 13. Manage people in Slack channels
It’s super easy to add or remove people from Slack channels just by talking to our chatbot. 

### 14. Access shared calendars
Employees effortlessly access shared calendars such as vacation calendars in seconds. They just submit their question to our virtual agent who fulfills their request promptly, adhering to existing permissions.  

### 15. Access their sales contracts
Sales reps ask our Generative AI Virtual Agent any contract-related question and it answers with information tailored specifically to them. 


## What are the benefits of using Gaspar AI for employee support?

Employees are the heart and soul of a company. Outstanding business results happen because of them, so making them happy and keeping them satisfied and loyal is crucial. The first and probably most important benefit of Gaspar AI is the happy employees! With Gaspar AI, employees get instant, user-friendly assistance, which minimizes their frustration and unproductive time, and maximizes their satisfaction and loyalty. By adopting Gaspar AI, employees get immediate answers from our AI Virtual Agent directly on Slack, MS Teams or Jira SM. This 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.
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With Gaspar AI, employees also get 100x faster issue resolution. Routine issues are resolved in seconds, allowing employees to return to work and freeing up your helpdesk team to focus on the complex ones and solve them promptly. As a result, employees and your helpdesk team alike enjoy higher productivity.
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Gaspar AI is extremely easy-to-use. This means that it can help employees from Day 1: no coding or special skills needed – Gaspar AI works autonomously to address employee support issues across the enterprise instantly. Employees will love using it: finally, they don’t need to know any technical jargon but can speak in their everyday language and get instant support! 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 outperforms competition and can be trained within weeks in 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. Gaspar AI will be your employees’ perfect partner!
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What’s also great with Gaspar AI is that it’s the only platform with an AI chatbot offering in-app instant support on 3 applications - Slack, MS Teams and JSM support portal. With continuously evolving integrations, Gaspar AI provides a sophisticated chat experience, featuring in-bot form completion when in need to raise a ticket, and precise solutions.
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Finally, thanks to Gaspar AI’s Business Insights and Performance Metrics you get actionable recommendations for your support team and business operations. You can easily review your platform’s performance, get guidance about how to further optimize processes, 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](https://www.gaspar.ai/free-trial-signup). 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. 

Are your employees struggling with support? Discover why Gaspar AI is what they need: 24/7 availability, automation, instant responses are just a few of the benefits.

Why your employees need Gaspar AI

Discover why CEOs and CIOs prioritize Gaspar AI in 2024. Learn how this AI helpdesk tackles their challenges, from AI scalability to cybersecurity, driving efficiency.

Why CEOs and CIOs can't afford to ignore Gaspar AI

Chatbots and AI-powered solutions have been around for a while now, but it’s only in recent years that they’ve gained real popularity among users and businesses alike, thanks to the great progress of Generative AI. You might remember Eliza, the first-ever chatbot that acted as a psychotherapist, or maybe you’ve used Clippit and you’re left with a sour taste in your mouth. Clippit (a.k.a. Clippy) was an early conversational assistant in MS Office that spoke at you rather than with you. Clippy greeted and treated repeat users as if they had never used the program before, earning widespread hate. It was less of an assistant and more of a bottleneck.
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Since then, conversational AI assistants have evolved to being an indispensable part of our lives – personal (think Siri and ChatGPT) and work (think Microsoft copilot, Gaspar AI and more). Thankfully, they’ve also become great helpers, earning widespread love thanks to Generative AI advancements. It’s become imperative to deploy Generative AI in every business: it transforms business operations by enabling them to automate tasks, create new products and services and elevate customer experiences – ultimately leading to a better bottom line.
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Gaspar AI is one such Generative AI solution. If you’re unsure about how you can use it and what the platform offers, this blog post is for you. You will discover multiple use cases of Gaspar AI across your company and understand why your employees and support teams will be better-off with our AI helpdesk by their side. 

 

## First, what is Gaspar AI?

Gaspar AI is a secure and always available Generative AI helpdesk platform that uses Generative AI for smarter and more efficient employee support. Thanks to advanced language models, it offers dynamic, human-like conversations, seamlessly integrating with various communication channels such as Slack and MS Teams, commonly used apps and IT systems. It empowers employees to act, search, query, and generate content across a multitude of enterprise applications.  

 

## What are Gaspar AI’s main components?


Our AI helpdesk blends several [advanced technologies](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/gaspar-generative-ai-helpdesk) to deliver sophisticated automation and support, including: 

- **Conversational Interface**: Using technologies such as large language models (LLMs), natural language processing (NLP), and natural language understanding (NLU), it is possible to interpret and comprehend free-form requests. Processes including semantic analysis, entity extraction, and intent recognition enable smooth and coherent dialogues. 

- **[Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/retrieval-augmented-generation-and-enterprise-helpdesk) (RAG)**: This involves two processes: retrieving relevant information from an extensive data source and generating a contextually enriched and accurate response which integrates the retrieved information. This step is crucial as it ensures that the output is not just factually accurate but also linguistically coherent and contextually apt.  

- **Plugins**: They are specialized components that execute planned actions. Each plugin is custom-built for specific tasks and system integrations, such as resetting passwords in Okta or adding accounts in Google Workspace. When combined, they automate processes seamlessly across your existing systems, leveraging your current setup. 

- **Generative Summarization**: Our AI model consolidates information and produces clear, accurate, human-like responses in natural language and in a digestible format, customized to each employee inquiry. 

- **Act across systems**: Efficient integration ensures seamless transitions between conversational comprehension, solution strategy, process automation, and summarization. 

- **Trust Mechanisms**: Our AI platform incorporates features such as citations, employee satisfaction review and human oversight to ensure accountability and safety.  

 

## Top 30 Gaspar AI Generative AI helpdesk use cases

The following 30 use cases highlight the extensive capabilities of Gaspar AI’s helpdesk across various enterprise systems – there are more! As you review the list, observe how our solution is uniquely equipped to not only search and retrieve information from numerous sources and repositories, or guide users to perform actions, but also to automate and act.
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We designed Gaspar AI as one unified, user-friendly, easy-to-adopt, out-the-box platform. We recognize though that every business has unique needs, which is why we made our helpdesk platform scalable and offer the flexibility for organizations to extend the platform. With robust ML operations and high customization capabilities, it is easy to build and accommodate new use cases and extend to new languages while preserving critical business logic.  

### IT support and operations AI helpdesk use cases

An AI helpdesk can empower IT operations teams to automate the ITSM process and optimize support operations. 

1. **Hardware provisioning**: Ensure all employees get the hardware – be it laptop, mobile phone or tablet - they need when they need it. 

2. **Automatically reset passwords**: Thanks to Gaspar AI password resets can be automated, saving helpdesk teams up to 50% of their time as they don’t need to get involved in the process anymore. 

3. **Software provisioning**: Enable employees to have access to the right applications and better manage licenses. 

4. **Account management**: Create new accounts, delete old ones, better manage existing ones. 

5. **MFA removal**: Easily remove the MFA from a specific account. 

6. **Provide Generative AI-powered search on the Jira SM support portal**: Allow employees to get summarized answers straight from Confluence on JSM. 

7. **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.  

8. **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. 

9. **Intelligent ticket triage**: Our 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. 

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. 

11. **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.  

12. **Knowledge base augmentation**: Our AI helpdesk uncovers the most common employee issues and identifies existing knowledge gaps. IT teams can fast-track the relevant content creation to enrich the company’s knowledge base and offer more opportunities for self-service. 

13. **Track key IT metrics**: On Gaspar AI’s Admin Hub, IT 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. 

14. **Customize field values on Jira**: IT teams can add a new value to a configured custom field in Jira. 

15. **Enable Generative AI capabilities on Atlassian Data Center**: The only GenAI solution that works for Atlassian Data Center customers. 

 

### HR AI helpdesk use cases

Our Generative AI helpdesk tackles routine HR tasks and offers immediate support: 

16. **Request time off**: Streamline the time-off approval process and allow for quicker approvals. 

17. **Offer access to health insurance information**: Offer employees a straightforward way to retrieve critical information regarding their health insurance benefits. 

18. **Review retirement plan balance**: Enable employees to promptly check their retirement account balance and access important information regarding their retirement plan. 

19. **Find out PTO balance**: Offer employees quick and easy access to information tailored specifically to their needs and employment situation. 

20. **Speed-up onboarding**: Make the process swift and delightful for new hires, ensuring no crucial steps are missed. 

21. **Facilitate offboarding**: Allow for a smooth offboarding process that keeps company data secure by automating the process. 

22. **Automate reminders for performance reviews**: Ensure that all employees complete their performance reviews on time by sending reminders on Slack and MS Teams.  

23. **Update the organizational structure**: When employees move across the company, easily change the organizational unit of an account. 

24. **Send announcements for company news**: Make sure that your company updates are not staying hidden and unread in the employees’ inboxes by sending automated updates on Slack and MS Teams. 

 

### Sales AI helpdesk use cases

Offer your Sales reps quick and easy access to information tailored specifically to their needs: 

25. **Access their sales contracts**: Sales reps ask our Generative AI Virtual Agent any contract-related question and it answers with information tailored specifically to them.  

26. **Find out payment and credit policies**: Empower your Sales team to quickly respond to prospects’ questions by giving them instant access to the information they are looking for. 

27. **Know their projects’ deadlines**: Sales reps ask our AI chatbot to give them an update and they instantly know what’s urgent and what’s not. 

 

### Collaboration AI helpdesk use cases

Collaboration platforms such as [Microsoft Teams](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/using-ms-teams-for-it-support) and [Slack](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/employee-helpdesk-on-slack) provide ideal environments for our AI helpdesk to deliver added value through: 

28. **Request access to shared folders**: Employees effortlessly locate and ask our AI helpdesk chatbot for access to specific folders.  

29. **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.  

30. **Task notifications**: Send proactive reminders to employees about upcoming tasks and deadlines to boost productivity and minimize missed assignments. 

31. **Create new groups and email lists**: Allow employees to easily create a new group or email list by asking for information such as name, purpose, members, and any necessary permissions. 

32. **Add people to and remove them from groups and email lists**: Effortlessly add employees to groups and distribution lists, or remove them. 

33. **Access shared calendars**: Enable employees to access shared calendars such as vacation calendars in seconds, adhering to existing permissions. 

34. **Manage people in Slack channels**: Make it easy to add or remove people from Slack channels. 

 

**If you’re curious to learn more about our use cases or see Gaspar AI in action, please [book a free meeting](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request)!**  

Explore how you can use Gaspar AI's helpdesk, designed to enhance employee support and streamline issue resolution across various enterprise systems.

30+ GenAI helpdesk use cases for your business

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

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