By: Jason Gintert

Networking has often been a daunting subject area reserved for only those “in the know,” usually in some sort of technical role. But as networking becomes a more essential part of business operations and business success, the need for the business owner or business-oriented staff with little or no technical background to be able to interact with and understand it more thoroughly could represent a huge step forward for IT leaders everywhere.

By now, most everyone has heard something about Artificial Intelligence (AI). We’ve heard it applied in many ways to a variety of different industries, from retail to supply chain to manufacturing to media and publishing. Similarly, the networking world is exploring ways for AI to help improve networking solutions and ultimately deliver services that help businesses perform better.

Interestingly, network service providers have lots of accumulated data about the network and its performance and usability. It would therefore seem natural that AI, which relies on providing “actionable intelligence” based on historical, prescriptive, and predictive data, could prove to be an immensely powerful tool for network service providers. AI capabilities in the network can deliver reliable decision-making capabilities from both the enterprise’s need to understand the network’s functionality to the actual network provider improving operations to better service customers. What we have found as we explore the application of AI in networking is there are several aspects of the network that one must understand to determine how AI can make a significant impact that can be felt all the way to the business owner’s top and bottom line.

The application of AI capabilities can make an impact in five key areas: 1) helping to improve usability; 2) improving service delivery, billing, network monitoring, reporting, hardware integrity, and more; 3) positively affecting network design to better support business success; 4) helping to ensure the latest security methodologies and applications are in place for the enterprise; and 5) enhancing business intelligence, particularly from the edge, and applying that intelligence to improve customer businesses.

Let’s take a look at each application “prompt” to understand the diverse possibilities associated with applying AI to the network in these five areas.

Usability

Usability from a business owner’s point of view when it comes to network management has not been very common. Most business owners have to rely on an IT or a networking consultant to help them understand the basic operation of their network service. This may go by the wayside with the iterative capabilities of AI to provide information to the owner with natural language. Instead of highly technical acronyms, the network service provider can use common language to interface with users to provide understanding of the network and its performance using an iterative process. First, understandable language prompts such as “reboot your router to improve your connection” can make operations seamless, with no need for costly consultants to get involved. Second, problem solving can be made easier and more effective with the iterative nature of AI. Iterative questioning can be made simple and will allow the user to get to the root of the problem quickly and understandably. Easy access to the network from one’s desktop allows for direct interactivity with network operations. This allows for self-performing network involvement, much as a user might access his or her bank account or inventory management system. It would provide another tool in the business owner’s arsenal to keep operations at all levels running smoothly and without interruption. Finally, AI-developed user interfaces and technology can be created to better work with AI applications to make network interaction seamless and not as daunting as before.

Service Delivery

AI can make network services management easier and more actionable. The most significant application AI can help with is examining business operations and then allowing customers to adjust services accordingly to save money or improve performance. From the point of view of business owners, this is significant as they work to manage their balance sheet or monthly budget. AI helps customers have more direct control over their network solutions. They will no longer have to solely rely on the NOC or core network operations to monitor the network and make changes for positive outcomes. In addition, reporting will be made easier through natural language to