Unleashing the Power of AI and Human Collaboration for Digital Resilience

Splunk: Transforming IT and Security Teams with Agentic AI

Agentic AI is revolutionizing the efficiency of IT and security teams, but it’s also changing the landscape of workforce development. As automation takes over tasks previously handled by junior analysts and engineers, organizations are facing a new challenge: how to cultivate the next generation of experts when AI is taking over traditional training grounds.

The Evolution of Skill Development

For years, becoming a top-notch SecOps analyst, SRE, or NetOps engineer involved repetitive tasks like triaging false positives, analyzing dashboards, and sifting through logs in the early hours of the morning. While this work was often seen as mundane, it served as an essential apprenticeship for building expertise.

However, with the rise of agentic AI, these repetitive tasks are being automated, eliminating the hands-on training that used to shape skilled professionals. While reducing drudgery and burnout is beneficial, organizations must now find new ways to train and develop operators for the future.

The Shift in Workforce Design

As organizations embrace agentic AI, they must be deliberate in how they prepare operators for the future. Those that invest in developing skilled professionals will thrive in the coming decade, while those that neglect workforce design may struggle to understand and govern rapidly evolving systems.

Maintaining Accountability in a Changing Landscape

In regulated environments, the accountability layer provided by human judgment is crucial. Auditors rely on human explanations behind control decisions, which can be jeopardized as AI systems take over more tasks. Organizations must ensure that human operators can still explain and oversee automated processes to maintain organizational memory and compliance.

Building Human Expertise for AI Governance

As AI systems become more autonomous, humans will play a critical role in governing these systems. This requires judgment, pattern recognition, and intuition built over years of experience – skills that the traditional apprenticeship model used to cultivate. Organizations must provide intentional pathways for operators to manage AI systems effectively while building the necessary expertise.

Empowering Human Operators in the Age of AI

Empowering human operators in agentic systems requires intentional design choices. From exposing reasoning behind AI recommendations to tiering authority based on confidence and impact, organizations must ensure that human operators can intervene, correct, and learn from AI-driven decisions. By fostering cross-domain knowledge and capturing resolutions, organizations can empower operators to govern AI effectively.

The Future of Digital Resilience

In the agentic era, human operators and AI systems must scale together to achieve practical and trusted operations. By prioritizing operator development and intentionally designing systems to build skills and careers, organizations can ensure that the next decade of digital resilience is truly owned and not rented from a diminishing pool of expertise.

Splunk and Cisco: Accelerating Agentic Operations

Learn more about how Cisco Data Fabric powered by the Splunk Platform is helping teams enhance agentic operations and navigate the evolving landscape of AI-driven technologies.

Kamal Hathi, SVP and GM of Splunk, a Cisco Company, shares insights on the intersection of human expertise and AI governance, highlighting the importance of prioritizing operator development for long-term success.

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This article is a sponsored content piece produced by Splunk, a company with a business relationship with VentureBeat. For more information on sponsored articles, contact sales@venturebeat.com.