Relieving the IT Burden: A Sneak Peek at Martello’s AI Strategy
Microsoft Teams Monitoring
Authors: Randah McKinnie – VP Product at Martello, Doug Bellinger – Martello CTO
Since large language models and image generators burst onto the scene about a year and a half ago, AI has sparked a mix of excitement, wonder and controversy. Everybody knows it’s a game-changer and no one wants to be left out — even if they’re not quite sure what to do with it yet.
According to statistics cited by CompTIA, more than half (55%) of organizations today are implementing AI in either a limited or extensive way, and the rest say they’re at least exploring it.
But that question of “what to do with it” matters because AI, while powerful, is an enabling technology: its value comes from how it’s applied. While he most vocal champions of AI may tout it as a panacea for any and all problems, the reality is today’s AI is very good at some things and not so good at others. Pattern recognition and checking software code: good. Writing completely factual research papers or legal briefs: not so much.
Two particular areas of AI strength are enabling business efficiencies and conquering big data. Those are exactly where we at Martello have focused our AI strategy, applying the technology in ways that will help reduce time to resolution, lower costs, speed up customer onboarding and increase productivity related to Microsoft Teams.
Our ultimate vision is to embed even more powerful analytics and proactive problem-solving into our Vantage DX solution, relieving the burden on IT departments that are responsible for managing Teams performance and the user experience.
A strategy in five stages
Knowing that AI is going to evolve rapidly and radically over the coming months and years, we’ve stepped our AI strategy along five increments that will allow us to take advantage of new capabilities as they emerge and prove reliable.
Those five increments are:
- Event detection
- Root cause analysis
- Remediation playbooks
- Remediation automation
- Impact assessment
Event detection, as the name implies, is about using AI to detect anomalies faster and more accurately in the Microsoft Teams environment. This allows IT staff to sift through a dramatically increased volume of event data, determine which peaks and valleys require further investigation, and gain a much deeper understanding of conditions that compromise Teams performance — and how to fix them early.
Root cause analysis exploits machine learning and classification algorithms to eliminate wasted diagnostic time, supported by the results of synthetic testing that verifies Teams is working as it should.
Going forward, we aim to use large language model capabilities to implement remediation playbooks — automatically communicating the actions needed to resolve issues for more accurate corrective actions that save time and money and improve overall service quality.
The next logical step beyond AI-generated remediation playbooks is to have the AI itself handle the actual steps through remediation automation. This will include full reporting of the problem to IT — including clear references to how such a problem was solved in the past — and capturing an explanation of how it has been fixed. For organizations intent on proactively mitigating Teams issues before they become user-affecting, this will be an invaluable enhancement.
The final stage of our AI strategy will be to provide impact assessments that show exactly how Vantage DX is contributing to an organization’s target outcomes by ensuring a frictionless Microsoft Teams experience. This will give both IT managers and business leaders empirical measures of returns on their Teams/Martello investments.
Built to deliver real results
By making the question “how can we do more with AI?” core to our strategy, we will continue to revolutionize the Microsoft Teams experience in meaningful and high-value ways. Our AI strategy is deliberate and practical, focused on making Teams environments — including Microsoft Teams Rooms and Microsoft Teams Phone — as efficient, seamless, productive and cost-effective as they can be.
We’re excited to continue leveraging the power of AI in our solutions. Watch for more posts and announcements in the months to come.
