Generative AI has sparked extensive interest in the employee support sector, but companies often don’t consider the risks until AI models or applications are already in use.
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As we analyzed in our [previous blog post](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/ai-employee-helpdesk-for-shadow-it-risks), there is no guaranteed way to keep employees from using Generative AI to work more efficiently – and this comes with security risks. Therefore, the most effective way to address Shadow AI 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.
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But how secure exactly are AI employee helpdesks?
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AI employee helpdesks can be very secure if proper measures are implemented. In this article we will explore some considerations that should be in place for ensuring security. 

## 8 steps to ensure AI employee helpdesks’ security
 

1. **Data encryption**: Encrypting data at rest and in transit is a fundamental practice to protect sensitive information. Ensure that your chosen AI helpdesk encrypts all data transmitted between the user and the platform, and when data is transferred from your internal knowledge bases and repositories, to prevent interception by unauthorized parties.  

2. **Secure access control**: Implement robust access controls to restrict access to the AI helpdesk system only to authorized personnel. With Gaspar AI for instance, IT managers and Admins have complete control over who interacts with the platform and how much autonomy they have – they can configure security measures and access privileges on the Admin Hub. At the same time, Gaspar AI’s helpdesk honors all existing user permissions and access rights. This means that employees can view or access only information they are allowed to – they can’t access sensitive and confidential data if they are not supposed to.  

3. **Data privacy**: Make sure your AI employee helpdesk provider adheres to data privacy regulations such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) or CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) to protect the personal information of employees using the helpdesk. It’s also crucial that your provider does not use your company’s. With Gaspar AI 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. 

4. **Regular audits and updates**: Regularly audit the security measures in place, validate the compliance audits of vendor and review their operational security practices. When needed, update them to address any vulnerabilities that may arise.  

5. **Training and awareness**: Educate employees about security best practices when interacting with the AI helpdesk, such as avoiding sharing sensitive information unless necessary and being cautious of phishing attempts. Communicate transparently about how AI models operate, ensuring that employees comprehend the technology's role in the IT helpdesk ecosystem. You should prioritize educating users on data privacy, the ethical use of AI, and the steps taken to maintain a secure environment.  

6. **Secure integration**: If the AI helpdesk integrates with other systems or databases, ensure that these integrations are secure and follow best practices for data exchange. Conduct thorough security assessments to ensure that the integration doesn’t compromise data security. Choose a platform that seamlessly integrates with your existing IT infrastructure. Evaluate the platform's compatibility with your current systems, applications, and databases. Ask for API support for custom integrations with CRM, project management, or other relevant applications.  

7. **Vendor security**: When using a third-party AI helpdesk provider, you should ensure that they have robust security measures in place and conduct due diligence on their security practices. 

8. **Monitoring and incident response**: Implement monitoring tools to detect any suspicious activities or breaches in real-time. Have a well-defined incident response plan in place that ensures that any security incidents are addressed swiftly and effectively, reinforcing both trust and the overall resilience of the AI employee helpdesk infrastructure. Once more, vendors that have added specialized controls and practices for testing, validating and improving the robustness of AI workflows will have an advantage.  


Security is a top priority. By selecting an AI employee helpdesk that is designed with robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard sensitive data and by following these measures, you can rest assured that you minimize risks and ensure a secure digital environment for all users. However, it's essential to remember that security is an ongoing process that requires regular assessment and adaptation to evolving threats.
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If you have questions or are interested in our AI helpdesk and want to discuss security, please [contact us](https://www.gaspar.ai/contact-us).  

Discover 8 steps to ensure security in AI employee helpdesks. Explore data encryption, access control, privacy, audits, vendor security, and monitoring.

Are AI employee helpdesks secure?

The enterprise helpdesk responsible for employee support is undergoing a huge transformation. The goal? To end the slow issue resolution (Mean Time To Resolve is almost 27hrs!), the increasing ticket volume and the growing costs. The incorporation of Generative AI in internal employee support across the enterprise yields tangible benefits. By adopting an AI enterprise helpdesk, companies can automate repetitive process, offer instant answers and resolve routine issues in seconds, significantly reducing ticket volume and costs.
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While generative AI tools gain popularity, the persistent issue of hallucinations - plausible sounding but incorrect responses to users’ queries - hinders their enterprise adoption. These misleading responses pose significant risks in critical business interactions. Enter retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), a technique that can reduce hallucinations, thus revolutionizing enterprise AI integration. It is favored in enterprise chatbots for its ability to integrate company-specific data, enhancing AI grounding. This approach has transformative potential across various sectors including workplace support, offering a competitive edge. 

## Understanding retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)

RAG is a sophisticated AI mechanism that enhances the functionality of LLMs by integrating a dynamic retrieval system. This system allows LLMs to access and utilize external, up-to-date data sources under specific instructions, thereby helping them generate more accurate and contextually aware responses.
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RAG combines two processes: retrieving relevant information from an extensive data source and generating a contextually enriched response based on this retrieved data. This is done thanks to two components:  

1. **Information Retrieval**: The first step is to conduct a semantic search within a data source. When RAG receives a query, it utilizes advanced algorithms to navigate this source, identifying the most relevant data in relation to the query. The retrieval mechanism is designed to understand the semantic relationships between the query and the data source contents, ensuring that the data selected is contextually aligned with the query's intent.  
2. **Natural Language Generation (NLG)**: The second phase involves NLG, where the LLM processes the retrieved data and generates an accurate response which integrates the retrieved information as well. This step is crucial as it ensures that the output is not just factually accurate but also linguistically coherent and contextually apt. 

Through these components, retrieval augmented generation significantly amplifies the capabilities of LLMs, especially for tasks requiring them to retrieve relevant information. By incorporating this retrieved information, RAG can produce more informed and contextually relevant outputs, reducing the likelihood of generating hallucinations or incorrect responses. This makes them invaluable tools in various enterprise applications where prompt and precise information is key.  

## Why is RAG better for the AI-powered enterprise helpdesk?

RAG blends text generation with information retrieval to enhance the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated content. This is particularly enticing for enterprise applications where up-to-date factual knowledge is crucial. Businesses can choose enterprise helpdesks that use RAG with foundation models to create more efficient and informative chatbots and virtual assistants.
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RAG is recommended for data that change periodically in small periods of time (dynamic data), and this is what makes it the most appropriate solution for the enterprise helpdesk. Using RAG, an AI helpdesk vendor can gather a ton of structured and unstructured company information, documents, etc., and feed it into a model without having to fine-tune or custom train it. A RAG-based AI helpdesk can generate company-specific answers from almost any external data source, without making any adjustment.  

### Enhancing response accuracy and relevance

Since company data continuously change, integrating RAG into the AI helpdesk ensures that responses to employee queries will never be outdated, generic or irrelevant. By incorporating contextual, real-time, company-specific information from a knowledge base, RAG mitigates the risk of generating misleading or incorrect responses, thus increasing reliability and improving employee support efficiency. RAG ensures LLMs use the most current data, vital for tasks requiring the latest information for decision-making.  

### Scaling beyond fixed context windows

RAG allows LLMs to access vast data pools beyond their fixed context windows, crucial for enterprises with large-scale, dynamic data. This enhances information processing and model scalability. 

### Increased speed and reduced costs

Bypassing the need to store all knowledge directly in the LLM also reduces model size, which increases speed and lowers costs. This means that RAG-based solutions can be more cost-efficient alternatives that also drive higher productivity. 

## Challenges and considerations when implementing RAG in the enterprise helpdesk

While retrieval-augmented generation offers significant benefits for the enterprise helpdesk, several challenges may arise when using this technique: 

- **Data quality**: RAG heavily relies on the quality and relevance of the data in the knowledge base. Inaccurate or outdated information can lead to incorrect responses, undermining the model’s effectiveness. Maintaining an updated knowledge base with high-quality content is crucial.  
- **Knowledge base size and coverage**: RAG's effectiveness depends on the knowledge base's size and coverage. Limited or incomplete knowledge bases may restrict the system's ability to retrieve relevant information, leading to suboptimal performance. 
- **Handling ambiguity and contextual understanding**: RAG may struggle with ambiguous queries or nuanced contextual understanding. Resolving ambiguity and accurately interpreting context remains a challenge, especially in complex or specialized domains. 
- **Ethical and privacy concerns**: Retrieving information from large datasets raises concerns regarding data privacy, security, and ethical considerations, especially when dealing with sensitive or proprietary information. 

## Integrating RAG in the enterprise helpdesk for elevated functionality

Integrating RAG in the AI-powered enterprise helpdesk significantly elevates its functionality, making it the most effective solution for employee support. It offers more accurate responses and allows for better-informed decision-making. Gaspar AI is such a solution.
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Our AI helpdesk platform integrates with various knowledge bases (such as Coda, Notion, Google Docs, Confluence and more) and uses RAG to search and retrieve relevant information. Thanks to advanced NLP 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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Using Gaspar AI improves the quality, reliability, and efficiency of employee support interactions, leading to higher user satisfaction and improved productivity for both employees and support staff. If you’d like to learn more, you can [book a free demo](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request).  

Retrieval-augmented generation and the enterprise helpdesk

Discover how retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is increasing enterprise AI adoption and positively impacting workplace support. Learn everything here!

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 

Helpdesk teams are increasingly overwhelmed by the surge of employee requests. Traditional support is inefficient: resolutions are delayed, ticket backlogs grow, and strategic projects lack resources. As a result, employees struggle to complete their work, express dissatisfaction with IT and helpdesk teams, and find it challenging to access essential information. This situation leads to stressed support teams and unproductive, unhappy employees.
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To tackle this complexity, Gaspar AI offers a streamlined solution with a generative AI helpdesk that provides instant support. This blog will highlight our [integration with Microsoft Teams](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/using-ms-teams-for-it-support), outlining its benefits, key features, and installation process. 

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

A generative AI helpdesk for employee support allows your teams to complete tasks, find answers, and make informed decisions. This secure, always-available platform is designed for an AI-first world. Using advanced language models, it facilitates dynamic, human-like conversations and integrates seamlessly with various communication channels and IT systems. Employees can act, search, query, and generate content across multiple enterprise applications. Constantly improving generative models, AI-driven performance analytics, and customizable developer tools make it the future of assistance.
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Gaspar AI’s platform connects with various knowledge bases (like [Coda](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/coda-integration), Notion, [Google Docs](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/google-workspace-integration), Confluence, SharePoint, and more) and uses [Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://www.gaspar.ai/blog/retrieval-augmented-generation-and-enterprise-helpdesk) to find and provide relevant information. Advanced NLP ensures accurate, helpful, human-like responses tailored to the employee’s needs, with reduced instances of incorrect or misleading answers. Additionally, the platform [integrates with over 30 commonly used apps](https://www.gaspar.ai/integrations) to automate more than 100 tasks. Gaspar AI understands the intent behind queries, executes actions across different platforms, and automates tasks like password resets and software access approvals, freeing support agents from repetitive tasks. 

## Why integrate a generative AI helpdesk within Microsoft Teams?

Integrating a generative AI helpdesk with Microsoft Teams offers numerous benefits for organizations aiming to improve their service desk operations: 

- **Enhanced accessibility**: Employees can access the helpdesk directly within Microsoft Teams, making it convenient to seek help without switching platforms or needing technical knowledge. 

- **Streamlined communication**: Centralizing all helpdesk interactions in one platform simplifies communication and makes tracking and managing support requests easier. 

- **Increased user adoption**: Familiarity with Microsoft Teams increases the likelihood of employees using the AI helpdesk, leading to higher engagement and adoption rates. 

- **Enhanced collaboration**: Integration with Microsoft Teams facilitates better collaboration among employees and support agents, enabling easy sharing of information, documents, and updates within the same platform. 

- **Cost savings**: It reduces costs by consolidating tools and eliminating the need for separate service desk software licenses, maximizing the ROI of current Microsoft Teams investments. 

By embedding service desk capabilities within Microsoft Teams, companies can create a central hub for communication, collaboration, and problem-solving, simplifying workflows and fostering a culture of teamwork and knowledge sharing. 

## Gaspar AI for Microsoft Teams: Key features

When you integrate Microsoft Teams with Gaspar AI, you gain AI-powered features to enhance employee support operations and improve efficiency: 

- **Automated resolution**: Gaspar AI’s generative AI chatbot resolves at least 40% of employee issues automatically and instantly, including common problems like password resets, software provisioning, and access requests. 

- **Automated approvals**: Employees can request time off or access to channels, folders, and groups directly within Microsoft Teams. Both requesters and approvers can track the status on the same platform. 

- **Instant accurate answers**: Employees can instantly find information on HR policies, IT troubleshooting, and more by asking the AI virtual agent on Microsoft Teams, which searches knowledge bases and repositories to provide concise, cited summaries to at least 85% of their questions. 

- **Efficient internal communications**: Reach and engage employees with tailored messages directly through Microsoft Teams, such as software migration announcements, planned maintenance updates, or HR policy changes. 

- **No-code workflow automation**: Reduce manual work by 80% with customizable no-code workflows. 

- **Hassle-Free automated ITSM**: If auto-resolution is not possible, the platform creates a ticket on your ITSM, ensuring smooth handoff to the right agent, with easy ticket creation and status tracking on Microsoft Teams. 

## Setting up Gaspar AI on Microsoft Teams

Setting up Gaspar AI is straightforward. Begin with a free 21-day trial, then log in with your SSO. A member of our team will contact you for onboarding and to help you configure permissions and access controls, ensuring secure access to information based on user roles. The platform is highly customizable, allowing you to select the features and automation levels you need. We prioritize a seamless experience from setup to daily use, reflecting our enthusiasm for great software. 

## Benefits of Gaspar AI in the workplace

Implementing Gaspar AI on Microsoft Teams offers multiple benefits: 

- **More than 40% of issues resolved automatically**: The AI virtual agent resolves issues directly on Microsoft Teams, reducing repetitive requests and ticket volume. 

- **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.

- **80% less manual work**: Automating repetitive tasks decreases manual work for end-users and helpdesk teams. 

- **Increased productivity**: Fast and accurate issue resolution minimizes downtime, enhancing workforce productivity. 

- **24/7 access to help**: The generative AI helpdesk is available anytime employees need it. 

- **More time for strategic projects**: Fewer tickets free up IT teams to focus on important projects. 

- **Decreased costs**: Reducing resolution times and inefficiencies lowers related costs, boosting company profitability. 

- **Happier employees**: Streamlined communication and efficient support lead to higher satisfaction, retention, and a positive workplace culture. 

To advance your AI journey, [schedule a call with us](https://www.gaspar.ai/demo-request) to discuss your needs and goals. You’ll also have the opportunity to see our platform in action and experience the power of generative AI firsthand.

Streamline your employee support with Gaspar AI's generative ΑΙ helpdesk for Microsoft Teams. Automate tasks, boost productivity, and enhance satisfaction!

MS Teams generative AI helpdesk: The future of employee support

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

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.

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