IBM and ServiceNow are helping businesses reduce costs using AI

IBM and ServiceNow have expanded their strategic partnership to help companies use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate their IT operations.

The joint solution will employ IBM's hybrid cloud software and professional services and ServiceNow's intelligent workflow capabilities, IT service and operations management products. It will be enabled through a joint go-to-market strategy and available later this year.

The partnership combines IBM’s Watson AIOps with ServiceNow's intelligent workflow capabilities and ITSM and ITOM Visibility products. Companies will be able to uncover AI-driven insights in their data, create a baseline IT environment and follow recommendations to prevent and repair IT issues at scale.

This will enable them to save time and resources from maintenance activities and focus on transformation projects supporting their business’ digital demands.

"AI is one of the biggest forces driving change in the IT industry to the extent that every company is swiftly becoming an AI company," said Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM. "By partnering with ServiceNow and their market leading Now Platform, clients will be able to use AI to quickly mitigate unforeseen IT incident costs. Watson AIOps with ServiceNow's Now Platform is a powerful new way for clients to use automation to transform their IT operations."

Many companies are trying to innovate and create great customer and employee experiences while also finding efficiencies and reducing costs and IT risks. Given the proliferation of technology, small outages can damage a company’s revenue and reputation. The partnership will help customers prevent these issues by automating manual IT processes and increasing productivity.

"For every CEO, digital transformation has gone from opportunity to necessity," said ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. "As ServiceNow leads the workflow revolution, our partnership with IBM combines the intelligent automation capabilities of the Now Platform with the power of Watson AIOps.

"We are focused on driving a generational step improvement in productivity, innovation and growth. ServiceNow and IBM are helping customers meet the digital demands of 21st century business."

The joint solution has the following product capabilities:

• ServiceNow ITSM allows IT to provide scalable services on one cloud platform, which should increase productivity by 20%
• ServiceNow ITOM Visibility delivers near-real-time visibility from a configuration management database into all resources and the business services’ operational state
• IBM Watson AIOps automates how organizations identify, diagnose, respond to and address IT anomalies in real-time, reducing the average time to resolve incidents by 65%

IBM is growing its ServiceNow business to offer advisory, implementation and managed services on the Now Platform. Its practitioners will help support rapid delivery of valuable insights and innovation to clients and will introduce intelligent workflows to improve resiliency and reduce IT risk.

It’s also formed a new AIOps Elite Team, an advanced engagement team involved in engineering AIOps in a client environment and developing AI models.

"Businesses are facing increased pressures to match the digital pace of a cloud-first market in order to meet the demands of their customers," said Stephen Elliot, program vice president, DevOps and management software, IDC.

"The C- suite is transforming workflows to deliver insights and automation for more efficient customer engagement models and cost containment strategies for the business, while simplifying IT operations and increasing collaboration between IT and business stakeholders."