A majority of IT workers surveyed (79%) believe the current service desk model will be unrecognizable within three years, with nearly as many (77%) saying new technologies will render it "redundant" by 2027, according to The Death (and Rebirth) of the Service Desk from Nexthink.

87% of IT workers also report that, with digital transformation having greatly expanded the size and complexity of enterprise IT environments, incident response is "economically unsustainable" unless helpdesks have significant proactive capabilities. However, while the evolution of the service desk is seen as inevitable, attitudes are uncertain as to what comes next.

Positively, nearly all respondents (96%) also say that new technologies — particularly those around AI and automation — make them excited around the future of end user computing (EUC), with the same percentage arguing that the rapid evolution of EUC makes it an attractive future career route. Yet two-thirds (68%) say they fear these technological changes could impact their own career prospects moving forward.

This is evidenced by the overwhelming agreement around the importance of proactive IT:

■ 96% say greater proactivity in anticipating and responding to IT incidents is a top priority for their department.

■ 95% say their department is currently investing significant time and resources into becoming more proactive.

■ 96% say that proactive IT incident response will protect the organization's productivity and will transform the function and focus of the service desk.

■ 93% admit that being slow to react to an incident can damage ITs reputation internally.

"The ultimate value of any technology is how well it enables people to do their jobs and how it impacts overall company productivity," said Yassine Zaied, Chief Strategy Officer, Nexthink. "Right now, businesses are spending billions on digital transformation yet seeing mixed results at best. Whether it's underperforming devices, failed adoption projects, or botched migrations, business efficiency is constantly being halted by poor digital experiences. IT is going to be the nexus for all productivity enablement moving forward, and this research shows that IT workers are already looking to make that transition. The only question is whether executives will provide the resources investment needed to support them in this journey."

The research also found that while IT workers believe that existing roles will retain or increase their relevance in the coming years, nearly all of them (92%) feel that the service desk will evolve into the "experience desk" in the coming years and that this will require significant technological change.

The three most important upskilling areas identified were an understanding of the employee experience (58%), generative AI skills (57%), and an ability to deliver technological training and instruction (53%).

However, despite the openness to a new form of helpdesk from IT professionals, there are significant concerns about how such a transformation will be perceived by the wider organization. Three-quarters (76%) of IT staff say employees are resistant to deploying their own IT fixes, with similar majorities believe that insufficient employee training (75%), and a general resistance to change (74%) will hold back digital adoption of new tools and self-service incident remediation.

"Efficiency isn't merely a technical problem, it's about the day-to-day human experience," added Zaied. "Simply trying to fix problems as they arise means playing a losing game of whack-a-mole. Instead, organizations need to take a holistic approach employees digital experience by building better functioning environments that can improve productivity, rather than impeding it."

Methodology: Total sample size was 1,000 IT workers across the USA (400), UK (200), Germany (200), and France (200). The survey was conducted online between May 20 and June 12, 2024.