At the App Manage Event held in October of 2023 in Utrecht, Netherlands, I had the opportunity to deliver a thought leadership session and quickly decided that I wanted to cover the impact of AI on Application Management. With a lot of interest in both topics, it was fun to research and pull together interesting statistics and ideas to tie the two together. The session was not recorded, so I took the time to record it a couple of weeks later and offer here.

How Large Language Models Work

Before delving into the examples, I wanted to discuss, I thought it worth taking the time to offer a quick primer on how large language models work. While I fail to make it simple to grasp, my goal was to help the audience lean a bit more than they knew already; encouraging them to dig deeper if interested.

Comparing LLMs for App Management

Not all LLMs are created equal. Some may excel in certain application management tasks, while others might be better suited for different use cases. I compare different LLMs based on their ability to answer questions of interest when seeking to manage Google Chrome. While I start with Bard and Bing, I also compared others leveraging the site, ChatBot Arena.

Short-term and longer-term impacts

The impact of LLMs has both immediate and long-term impacts on how we work and on the job market, beyond application management. Multiple studies show that LLMs are broadly adopted and that those how leverage this technology are doing more work, faster and with higher quality.

Prompt engineering for IT Pros

For IT professionals, understanding how to craft effective prompts is crucial when using LLMs for application management. In this section some guidance and examples are shared to help craft better prompts to get better output.

Real-world examples of how AI can help you in App Management

The real-world applications of LLMs in application management are vast. From here forward, the video shares how you can use LLMs to address real-world problems associated with application management.

PowerShell, for those that don’t know PowerShell

PowerShell is a powerful scripting language for Windows system administration but can be intimidating to pick up and so has long been associated as a skill of a more senior/experienced desktop engineer. Starting now, everyone can easily take advantage of PowerShell without needing to even understand how.

Your new Setup.exe /?

Some command line tools would support a “/?” switch/argument to show built-in documentation about available command line options. While this very rarely apply to installers, you get the functional equivalent with AI Chatbots.

Pushing back on wrong answers

Hallucinations (incorrect answers) can and will surface, testing answers will be a key to success adoption.

Watch the full video to dive deeper into these topics and unlock the potential of LLMs in your application management journey.