Enabling Proactive IT: How AI is Transforming Network Visibility

For years, IT teams have been stuck in a reactive mode, scrambling to fix network performance issues only after users start complaining. Despite an abundance of monitoring tools, the real challenge has always been identifying and resolving issues before they impact productivity—without spending countless hours on manual troubleshooting.

A recent survey revealed that 67% of businesses cite network blind spots as a major obstacle to data protection efforts, limiting their ability to detect and mitigate security threats.

The consequences are real—84% of network professionals often learn about issues from users, meaning disruptions impact productivity before IT can respond. This lack of proactive visibility hampers monitoring, raises security risks, and burdens IT with manual troubleshooting.

Why traditional network monitoring isn’t enough

Most network monitoring tools overwhelm IT teams with data overload—charts, logs, and endless alerts that require manual correlation to diagnose issues. By the time IT pinpoints the root cause, productivity suffers, and users are frustrated. 

• Manual troubleshooting drains already stretched IT teams, forcing them to sift through logs and juggle multiple tools to diagnose issues. 
• Too much noise, not enough clarity—alert fatigue slows response times as IT struggles to separate critical threats from routine anomalies.
• User experience remains a blind spot—traditional tools track network performance but lack real-time visibility into how issues impact users.

How AI is changing the game for IT teams

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing network operations, automating tasks, enhancing security, and shifting IT from reactive to proactive management. It streamlines routine processes, optimizes resources, and improves overall efficiency. Gartner® predicts that “by 2026, 60% of network operations personnel will rely on GenAI for Day 2 management, up from less than 5% in early 2024.” Gartner also states that, “by 2026, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technology will account for 20% of initial network configuration, which is an increase from near zero in 2023.” 

Here are some of the ways AI can make a difference today:

• Automated anomaly detection – AI analyzes vast amounts of network data in real time, detecting unusual patterns before they cause outages.
• Predictive maintenance – AI goes beyond traditional trend analysis by mimicking human decision-making to diagnose complex issues to enable proactive fixes..
• Intelligent alerting – AI-powered systems can filter and prioritize critical alerts, reducing noise and improving response times.
• Enhanced security – AI algorithms can analyze network traffic for suspicious behavior, detect potential security threats, and rapidly respond to cyberattacks or breaches..
• Proactive network management – AI automates configuration, fault detection, and repairs, optimizing performance and reducing human error.

By integrating AI, IT teams move from firefighting to proactive optimization, ensuring better performance, stronger security, and a seamless user experience—solving issues before they disrupt operations.

Here’s how AI is making a difference with the help of Netskope One Digital Experience Management (DEM):

• ML-based network path degradation automated diagnostic – DEM’s Path Performance Dashboard leverages ML-driven automated diagnostics to detect network path degradations instantly–cutting down manual troubleshooting time and ensuring IT teams don’t have to play detective across LAN, ISP, and cloud paths. With the new automated diagnostic feature, teams can instantly identify the root cause by simply clicking the “Diagnose” button above the network path.

• User experience score root cause analysis (RCA) – The User experience score automated RCA utilizes heuristic machine learning to analyze and summarize key factors impacting low user experience scores. By pinpointing the root cause of performance issues in real time for specific users, it improves frontline helpdesk efficiency–eliminating the need for IT teams to chase vague complaints. Integrated with IT service management (ITSM) systems, it streamlines resolution workflows and accelerates ticket closure..

A unified approach to network insights is essential—IT teams need a single source of truth rather than piecing together data from multiple tools. DEM provides comprehensive, end-to-end visibility across all traffic types, including steered traffic through Netskope and bypassed traffic. With enhanced support across diverse network architectures, it ensures seamless monitoring by incorporating all network paths into synthetic testing, offering deep insights into latency, application performance, and overall connectivity. This makes it the definitive DEM solution for customers needing full visibility across hybrid environments

Shifting IT from reactive to proactive IT with AI

AI won’t replace IT teams, but those who embrace it will stay ahead. The future isn’t about adding more monitoring tools–it’s about making them smarter. AI-driven automation shifts IT from reactive troubleshooting to proactive optimization, ensuring issues are resolved before they impact users.

A seamless user experience depends on efficiency, security, and reliability, and AI is the key to delivering all three. But automation alone isn’t enough–a unified approach to network insights is critical. A single platform that consolidates visibility across all traffic–on-prem, cloud, or direct-to-internet–keeps IT ahead of disruptions.

Organizations that adopt AI and unified management today will define the future of IT. Take the first step with Netskope One DEM.

Gartner, Prepare for Generative AI in Network Operations, By Jonathan Forest, Andrew Lerner, 19 March 2024. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.