Voice-driven smart assistants are moving beyond our homes and call systems, and directly into our IT management platforms.
Indeed, we recently discussed how end users are now able to obtain customer support via plain text speech, and now ManageEngine is adding capabilities to the other side by integrating voice commands for technicians. The company recently launched a voice assistant and geo-fencing features for Desktop Central, its unified endpoint security and management solution.
The new AI-powered virtual assistant will allow administrators to:
- Scan for, detect and deploy missing patches
- Perform asset scans
- Uninstall software
- Block unauthenticated executables
- Prohibit software
- Establish remote connections
- Shut down and wake up computers
All of these tasks can be performed with simple voice commands like initiating a remote connection to a machine by saying its name or asking for details on which computers in the network are vulnerable. The virtual assistant is now available through the Desktop Central app for Android devices. To perform these tasks you would need to do it through the app located on your phone.
Voice-Driven IT Management: Remaining Challenges
The technology sounds promising, but I have a few concerns.
- First, if you are using your mobile device to communicate with the end user, it may not be easy to send the voice commands.
- Even if you're a technician on a more traditional service desk headset, you may need to frequently mute customer conversations to interact with the voice-driven technology.
- Having multiple technicians in a single support center attempting to send voice commands could get overwhelming. The office could get very loud very quickly.
Still, there's some potential upside here. For technicians on the go, this technology could be game-changing. Those techs could gain a great deal of productivity by being able to send complex voice commands instead of trying to navigate remote management apps on their mobile device.
Location-Based Security
ManageEngine also announced Geo-Fencing features now available in the mobile Desktop Central app. The company claims the new geo-fencing will help IT teams automate IT security policies on a device based on its location, including locking it or completely wiping corporate data from the device if it leaves the established geographical range.
This feature can be extremely helpful for businesses that are under HIPAA compliance requirements. Many medical offices utilize tablets and mobile devices in order to enter patient information. With so many people coming in and out of the building, these tablets could easily 'walk' away, leaving the business open to a breach of their patient's health information. The ability to automatically wipe a device if it leaves the office could ease compliance enforcement.
