ManageEngine has announced a significant generative AI update for its cloud-based unified service management platform, ServiceDesk Plus.
AI flexibility
With this new release, ManageEngine is providing customers with the ability to choose their preferred AI providers for different AI capabilities. Users can leverage the company's own Zia large language model (LLM) without incurring additional pay-per-usage charges, or opt for public AI providers, including ChatGPT and Azure OpenAI. ManageEngine stated that this approach allows customers to select the most appropriate model for varying AI functions and manage costs accordingly.
Umasankar Narayanasamy, Vice President at ManageEngine, said, "As AI initiatives across enterprises accelerate, it is important to ensure that they seamlessly integrate into the enterprise IT ecosystem and learn from and adapt to workflows to harness the true potential of these initiatives."
Embedded AI features
The enhanced capabilities include the GenAI-powered Ask Zia Virtual Agent, Workflow Assist, and Script Generator, which are available to customers at no extra cost. The latest updates aim to help end users, technicians, and process owners achieve higher productivity and streamline their workflows by embedding AI at points where it can provide the most tangible benefits.
"With the Ask Zia virtual agent and the other embedded AI-enabled capabilities available now in ServiceDesk Plus, IT and enterprise service management teams can leverage them at no additional cost across their high-value employee and customer success use cases. At ManageEngine, we will continue to invest in and build our proprietary, end-to-end AI technology stack to help customers achieve a rapid time-to-value on their AI initiatives while ensuring the highest standards of data security and privacy."
ServiceDesk Plus enhancements
The release introduces a variety of AI-driven IT service management (ITSM) features. Notably, Ask Zia now offers a large language model-based interface with multi-modal support. This virtual agent can have contextual, multi-turn conversations, retrieve information, summarise knowledge base articles, and execute ticketing operations, serving as a central point of contact for all users.
Another feature, Ask Zia Workflow Assist, enables process owners to rapidly transition from initial specifications to complete workflows. It can interpret both textual requirements and images to generate visual workflows, suggest automations, conduct condition checks, and address disconnected nodes.
The update also introduces generative AI enhancements, such as generating resolutions extracted from existing ticket conversations and notes, creating checklists, producing JavaScript snippets for template customisations, and recommending solutions during ticket creation or editing.
No added licensing complexity
ManageEngine highlighted that these AI-driven features are accessible across different editions of ServiceDesk Plus without additional licensing requirements, aiming to simplify adoption for organisations managing IT services at scale.
Gartner recognition
The company has also been included for the first time in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Artificial Intelligence Applications in IT Service Management (ITSM), designated as a Niche Player. The Magic Quadrant report assessed ten vendors based on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. ManageEngine credits this recognition to its global presence and provision of AI features that are simple to deploy and do not incur extra charges for AI usage.
The Gartner research included the following disclaimer: "Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose."
ServiceDesk Plus overview
ServiceDesk Plus integrates ITSM essentials, asset management, and a configuration management database (CMDB) alongside enterprise service management functionalities. It supports both on-premises and SaaS models. The platform is certified as ITIL-compatible for 14 practices and PinkVERIFY-certified for ten processes. The new AI enhancements are designed to deliver improved user experiences across employees, technicians, and process owners.
