At the conference, stands and speakers explored how today’s companies can:

• Understand their digital workplace maturity level
• Learn how to advance their digital employee experience
• Discover how to leverage GenAI for increased workplace productivity
• Tackle topics like hybrid working, collaboration tools, and more

As leaders in AI observability, a technology that supports each of these areas, we were well-positioned to advise and empower attendees. Here are three key takeaways from the event and our conversations there.

AI is top of mind at C-level

AI and its adoption are critical components of a CIO’s role–so the implementation and use of these technologies are a discussion for the boardroom. This point was highlighted at the summit.

Gartner shared research from its 2022 Digital Worker Survey, in which 49% of respondents named the CIO as one of the top three executives whose policies and actions have had the most positive influence on their employee experience. This aligned with our own findings that 75% of CIOs are testing or implementing AI projects, and that AI projects top budget spending over the next three years. However, the challenge is implementing AI that works.

Gartner highlighted the importance of breaking down siloed experiences, reducing fragmentation and risk, and prioritizing impactful investments. This is exactly what we do at Riverbed: we use powerful AI and machine-learning technology to achieve these goals automatically, with minimal need for human intervention. We pride ourselves on our library of 170 pre-built, expert-designed, triggered remediations.

The total experience matters most

While the experience you give your customers is paramount, employees need an exceptional one too. However, delivering better user experiences is getting harder with increasing IT complexity, end-user demands, and hybrid work.

Our scalable solutions collect, analyze, automate, and report on real data through a Unified Agent with a single, simple user interface. This means we can deliver actionable insights on user experience at every device, application, and click; immediately diagnose user experience issues, remotely and non-invasively; and pinpoint opportunities to improve the digital experience. What’s more, we tackle the problem of agent fatigue by collecting more data without adding agents via our unified agent manager.

We also offer superior out-of-box experiences for popular business process applications and open support for 35 third-party integrations–including AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Workspace, ServiceNow, and Slack–so every employee’s every experience is monitored and optimized.

Frontline workers need our focus

Gartner’s 2022 Digital Worker Survey found that most employees still only view IT as a support function, with 55% approaching IT for technical support. Yet, IT can’t prevent and resolve critical issues fast enough, with a flood of false-positive alerts, a shortfall of top IT talent, and a lack of tools and precise insights into which notifications matter.

This is especially challenging for frontline workers, whose jobs are essential and whose digital experience can be life-changing – and life-saving. The good news is that we can remedy their issues in the ways we’ve mentioned above, giving them fewer blue-screen moments and more seamless processes that boost their productivity and drive better outcomes. We can also support them across mobile and tablet devices, which they tend to use in their fast-paced, often-physical roles.

With 155 million new company-owned devices entering the market every year, unsurprisingly, this creates gaps in measuring device performance. Enter our mobile device data-collection solution, Aternity Mobile, which gathers over 150 metrics on mobile device, app and network performance. This allows IT to proactively identify digital experience issues on company-provided mobile devices and take action. It works on Apple iOS and Android across the most complete range and broadest coverage of user experience devices: computer, web, mobile, and free-standing kiosks.

At Riverbed, we support businesses in building more digitally mature workplaces using a unique combination of employee experience expertise and state-of-the-art, AI-powered tools. We hope to see you at an event soon, but in the meantime, get in touch with our friendly, helpful team to find out more about what we do and how we can help.

The Riverbed team had the opportunity to engage with senior decision-makers and policy developers across the UK Government, plus many of those who work directly on the front line. This included experts across UK Defence & Security Exports, Border Force, the Joint Maritime Security Centre, Digital, Data & Technology and related departments, as well as over 350 other suppliers.

The theme of the event was “Collaboration. Innovation. Resilience.” and across the three days, stands were visited, talks were listened to, insights were shared, conversations were had, immersive live demonstrations were eagerly experienced. Here are our most significant takeaways from it all.

There are many ways to work in tech

At Riverbed, we are proud to provide industry-leading IT solutions that empower exceptional digital experiences. But the kind of technology we offer is totally different to some of the advancements we saw on other exhibitors’ stands. It was exciting and eye-opening to explore the innovations from companies that craft weapons, convert police cars, design tactical workwear, and more.

Yet today, each of these organisations is supported by their IT infrastructure; without robust and reliable back-end systems, employees can’t effectively do their jobs, risks can’t be mitigated, and research and development can’t happen at the pace the industry demands. It felt inspiring to speak to representatives from these kinds of organisations who we could, or do, support–knowing we’re contributing to the production of tools and equipment that keep our country safe.

Collaboration is on the rise

In the past, we’ve noticed many technology companies working in closed-off ways, wanting to keep customers in their ecosystem without losing them to competitors. But this attitude seems to be shifting, and it was refreshing to see so many major vendors collaborating to create end-to-end solutions that address all customers’ needs.

We’re proud to be included in this number, as we continuously become more and more open, incorporating third-party data into our platforms to generate the best outcomes for both our customers and peers. We were also delighted that the Government and Home Office were keen to chat with us, as they were looking for ideas and inspiration to improve the way they work.

Response times are of critical importance

When working alongside our customers, it’s often the engineering teams we liaise with–the people who run things, not necessarily those who use things. The event gave us an ideal opportunity to talk to the end users working on the front line, who actually utilise the systems we’re enlisted to transform.

It was fascinating to hear about their challenges and goals, and how their perceptions and experiences can differ from those of the engineering teams. Primarily, responsiveness is top of mind for this group–they don’t think about how smart or snazzy a tool is, as long as it allows them to enter a situation, search for what or who they need, and send an update in an instant. After all, in an emergency situation or warzone, every second counts.

Stand visitors were pleased to hear that Riverbed can help staff at all levels and roles. We’ve helped many customers in this sector to reduce costs, which can then be rerouted to capacity and technology improvements; reducing latency to accelerate system response times; enhancing end-user experiences; and mitigating the need for ‘war rooms’ to resolve issues. Moreover, we’ve empowered other customers to significantly improve their response times, enabling employees to keep colleagues in the loop quicker and more reliably than ever.

While AI can be seen as a threat, it’s also a force for good

Artificial intelligence was, unsurprisingly, one of the event’s hottest discussion points. It’s clear that the technology brings about unprecedented threat in areas such as terrorism, fraud, and economic- and cyber-crime. The Alan Turing Institute gave a particularly interesting talk entitled ‘The Rise of Deepfakes’, exploring how easily and convincingly images and video can now be manipulated, with potentially dangerous consequences.

However, the tech’s positive impact can’t be ignored, as was discussed in a thought-leadership panel our team attended: ‘Applications of Artificial Intelligence in National Security and Policing’. At Riverbed, we use AI and machine learning to automatically find and fix issues in organisations’ networks, often before the end-user even knows there’s been a problem. This enables security and defence companies to break free from blue screens, become more productive, respond to situations faster, and focus on what really matters: protecting people and saving lives.

Seeing high-energy stunts will always be awesome

There’s no doubt that the event provided a great platform for us to share our solutions with those who really need them, and to learn even more about a sector in which we’re deeply embedded.

Still, some of the most awe-striking moments were the live demonstrations performed by the likes of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service who showcased the latest equipment and skills to fight the most severe fires and rescues from complex car crashes. And the ADS Special Interest groups who presented interactive Counter Threat demonstrations on the UK’s premier capabilities in C-EO, CBRN drones, and Counter drones.

If you work in the Public Sector and find yourself constantly fighting fires across your IT infrastructure, get in touch. We’d be thrilled to move you to a place where you can focus on innovating rather than dealing with your ongoing IT challenges.