Section name - MYTH SMASH

⁠AI evolves fast; the myths even faster. So while checking with the OGs of IT if today’s IT stacks were AI-ready, we asked them to name the biggest misconceptions they keep hearing. Safe to say, we found some gems!

⁠David Cannon

⁠Pioneer of ITIL framework

⁠30 years driving IT & service management evolution

⁠The biggest misconception about AI is the fact that it works out of the box - that all you have to do is open the box, implement the tool, and it will automatically start generating all kinds of wonderful outcomes and solutions. In reality, it takes a lot to get the AI to do what you need it to do with the data that you need it to work with. 

⁠Jeffrey Tiefer-Tiller

⁠Global AI & Digital Transformation Leader, Service Management Executive/ITAM Consultant, CIO Advisor, ITIL4 Master

⁠That today's AI will be as good as AI ever gets. If we think about the technology and advancements day by day, we know that that's not the case. Tomorrow's AI is going to be a lot better than today's.

⁠James Finister

⁠AI Ethicist & ITIL Author | Contributor to Global Standards (ISO, IEEE)

⁠The biggest misconception about AI and IT at the moment is probably that other people are using it better than we are already ahead of the game. In reality, we're all pretty much in the same place. And it gives us a real opportunity to do something different with the way we manage AI and IT.

⁠John Santaferraro

⁠Top 10 Thought Leader for Agentic AI, Chief at The Digital Analyst

⁠The biggest misconception about AI in the world of IT is that IT administrators and IT architects are somehow no longer going to have a job. Instead of that, what I see happening is AI becomes the assistant and augments what architects and administrators can do. It augments because it has access to massive amounts of data on what's been done in the past, what's working, what's not working, how to best build systems, how to best maintain systems. And those are the kinds of things that we can't fit into our minds. But when that AI becomes our assistant, it has all of that data available any moment that you need it. So you don't have to worry about losing your job, but you do need to upskill and learn how to use AI to do your job better.

⁠Phyllis Drucker - 

⁠IT Service Management Consultant & Thought Leader

⁠30+ years improving customer experience and self-service in IT

⁠The biggest misconception is that it's going to replace IT staff. And in many cases it will because organizations will take the short-sighted goal. But if you actually took some of those IT people that you think you don't need and you put them to solving and automating fixes for more advanced issues, you actually start to generate an environment where people are not having their computers fail all the time.

⁠Ryan Schmierer

⁠I think the biggest misconception is that AI will replace human thinking. Instead of artificial intelligence, I like to use the term augmented intelligence. It's really about giving people the tools to do their job more effectively, not necessarily replacing the person. Yes, there will be some jobs that are replaced entirely, but in general, it's about helping people manage more data and, and changes that happen faster. This idea that it's going to replace people, I really just think is not realistic.

⁠Simone Jo Moore 

⁠AI Ethics & Service Management Expert | Thinkers360 Top 25 in AI Ethics

⁠The myth that AI is either a threat or a savior actually can keep us stuck. It's a mirror - it reflects our governance, our biases, our values. The danger isn't the AI itself. I think it's in the misuse out of fear or fatigue. So if you see governance not as a restriction but as a resonance, a system that listens, it can help guide and instruct us.

⁠Stephen Mann

⁠Principal Analyst & Content Director | ITSM.Tools

⁠Former Forrester Analyst & ITSM Practitioner

⁠The first is that people still think that AI is coming. They don't appreciate that it's already here. We need to understand that it's here already. The second is that AI offers a clean slate. We think it's going to solve a lot of the many ills that we have with IT service delivery or IT support. And I think we need to be quite honest and recognize that we need to have the ITSM basics in place in order to fully succeed with AI. We need to employ organizational change management to ensure that we aren't just doing yet another technology change, but we’re looking at the processes and people-related change as well. 

⁠Kenneth Gonzalez

⁠Founder and Leader advisor,

⁠Pretty Simple Group, Inc.

⁠ex-Gartner

⁠I think the biggest misconception about AI right now is that AI is our cure-all. If I have a problem, all I need to do is apply AI to it, and that's going to be my solution. It's really not the case. It's like any other technology that we have to deal with. It actually takes planning. It takes some disciplined execution in order to actually realize the benefits that are coming with the actual technologies themselves. And it also takes into account that it might not exactly be as simple as what it sounds like in order to be able to roll these tools out. And that's specifically because when you're talking about a myriad of data sources, while the technology may do a good job of being able to understand them and consuming the data, how do you get those tools wired up? The integration issue is a pretty significant issue. And for anybody that wants to start down this path, they need to account for the fact that there is going to be some effort involved and potentially some slowdowns because of the amount of work that it takes to get things tied together properly so that the tools could actually do the things they were designed to do.

⁠Mark Smalley

⁠Author & Speaker on Service, Experience & AI in IT

⁠Lead Editor, ITIL 4: High-Velocity IT

⁠I reckon a big misconception about AI is that it can and should be mastered. Otherwise it will master us. There's either this or that. I think it's more about evolving with IT. So it's a strange, weird sort of way of thinking this, but you shouldn't think about AI as “it”, but about “us”, the relationship between AI and the person using AI. So instead of thinking in terms of mastery goals, like everybody should use AI for 50 % of their work, you should think as leaders, you should think about setting relationship goals, like everyone should be able to articulate when they trust AI or not.

⁠Shane Carlson

⁠Consultative Sales Leader, Splunk (a Cisco company)

⁠27+ years in IT strategy and transformation

⁠I think the biggest misconception around AI and IT today is this expectation that AI is here to replace human capability. AI at its core is an assistive technology, and a lot of businesses are going to really have to evaluate their risk appetite around how they want to use AI. You want AI to surface information and help guide people towards making the right decisions, but you don't necessarily want AI making high-risk decisions for your business. So you need to understand what risk tolerances you have around decision making and ensure that sure, high volume, low value, low risk decisions can be made all day by AI. But anything that has a potential to introduce risk to your business or risk to your customers or risk to your reputation should be handled by a human being.