The Artificial Intelligence for Information Technology (IT) sector offers alleviation to ‘overworked’ professionals, as claimed by 71% of IT leaders in a global survey conducted by Freshworks. 

Nearly 2,000 IT professionals participated in the study titled, “AI is poised to solve the tech overload problem,” highlighting the benefits of generative AI in reducing workload and enabling them to focus on strategic responsibilities. About 95% of IT experts agreed that employees using Gen-AI tools could save time by automating ‘mundane, repetitive tasks’ from their workload. Additionally, 86% of IT employees have already embraced AI for work, and 51% are being encouraged to implement it in their current or forthcoming projects.

The survey also notifies that, while the IT sector is struggling with software bloat, AI tools like AIOps have shown positive results in boosting the personal productivity of IT employees. There is a pressing need for AI solutions for an overgrown tech stack that troubles IT departments with out-of-control business software and applications, bringing down productivity, budgets, and morale. Notably, there has been a sharp jump of nearly 71% since 2022 in applications for IT employees, yet they are largely not useful owing to inefficiencies and draining resources.

IT teams embracing AI could lead to significant financial benefits as experts estimate saving over five hours per week through AI-powered task completion, which translates to substantial annual savings of $15,122 per IT worker in the U.S., and approximately $183 billion across the entire IT sector.

Despite the advantages of boosting productivity, there are concerns surrounding AI adoption, as is often the case with any new technology. Privacy issues and fears of inaccurate or impolite communication are among the top worries for IT professionals. CIOs are urged to set up guardrails and adhere to best practices to ensure a successful and secure implementation of AI.

Prasad Ramakrishnan, CIO of Freshworks stated, “As a CIO, it’s a scary time because fraudsters already have tools to penetrate companies. Now these tools can get more potent with technology like generative AI. My advice to other CIOs is not to take this lightly.” He suggested a two-step strategy, Firstly, continuously train employees to be vigilant, as humans are the first and best lines of defense. Secondly, companies should invest in emerging enterprise-grade security products to address the challenges of the post-generative AI era.