rewrite this title From Reactive to Predictive: How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of IT Service Management – UC Today

Irwin Lazar, President and Principal Analyst at Metrigy; Chethan Visweswar, Chief Product Officer at Movius; John Finch, Global VP at RingCentral; and Mark Bunnell, Chief Operating Officer at Nuwave joined UC Today to discuss how AI is reshaping IT operations and why treating service management and connectivity as separate disciplines is no longer viable.

Most organisations are still managing service delivery in fragments. Separate teams, separate tools, and separate budgets are slowing transformation. As Bunnell put it: “Every single organisation has got a lot of tech debt – and then you add politics, different silos, and people who are scared of what AI means for their job.”

Visweswar agreed, noting that while convergence is accelerating, silos persist. “What used to be a technology-focused solution management is quickly evolving into an experience-focused one,” he said.

Reactive IT Is No Longer Enough

Lazar pointed to a pattern that has repeated across technology cycles. “Companies typically waited six months to a year to address service management. They assumed it would work – and then went back to the drawing board when it didn’t.”

That reactive mindset is expensive. Organisations that skip observability and monitoring at the point of deployment end up managing technology instead of growing their business.

AI Is Shifting the Conversation to Outcomes

Finch described a market-wide shift from communication tools to outcome-driven platforms. “It’s not about giving people the means to communicate,” he said. “It’s about a better way to service, a better way to sell, and making customers more happy.”

Metrigy’s latest AI for Business Success research shows nearly every company is now using AI to some extent – but few are measuring it against clear business outcomes. That gap is where most organisations are falling short.

Guardrails Are Non-Negotiable

The panel flagged a growing risk: organisations are deploying AI without the infrastructure to govern it. “How do you have visibility as the human controlling the AI into how it’s performing?” asked Finch. Lazar added that human oversight alone is not a sustainable answer as AI connectors and MCP-linked services multiply.

For more on how UC service management providers are approaching this challenge.