Technology is Always Lightspeed
Episode Overview
In this episode, Sean and Ari sit down with Avro Chatterjee, Altus Group’s Director of Site Reliability Engineering and Tools, to discuss the blistering speed at which agentic AI has evolved. What does this technology’s lightspeed development mean for enterprises, their customers, and the wider world of IT? Listen in to find out!
Key Takeaways
- IT is evolving from a reactive service provider into a strategic business partner. Avro emphasizes that modern IT organizations succeed by building scalable frameworks, automation platforms, and governance models that allow business units to move faster without sacrificing control.
- Automation delivers the most value when it targets unplanned work. By focusing on alert response, provisioning, and self-service, Altus has reduced operational noise and freed teams to focus on higher-impact, strategic initiatives.
- Incremental automation beats “big bang” projects. The Altus journey highlights the importance of starting small, prioritizing high-value and low-effort use cases, and continuously improving based on real operational data.
- Automation maturity depends on observability, prioritization, and exception handling. Strong telemetry and ticketing data inform what to automate next, while safeguards like loop-breaking and escalation prevent automation from masking deeper issues.
- AI and automation are converging into a single operational fabric. AI-driven observability engines paired with orchestration enable faster detection, smarter triage, and increasingly autonomous resolution without ejecting humans from the loop.
FAQ
Q: What does a “lights-out” operations model actually look like in practice?
A: Lights-out operations don’t mean removing humans entirely. At Altus, it means using automation to handle the majority of alerts, provisioning tasks, and routine operational work so that only high-value issues reach human teams. Today, more than 60% of alerts and provisioning activities are handled automatically, allowing IT staff to focus on strategic improvements instead of constant reactive work.
Timestamp: 6:44–9:54
Q: How should organizations prioritize what to automate first?
A: The most effective approach combines data from observability and ticketing systems with stakeholder input. Altus prioritizes automation candidates based on frequency, business impact, and effort required, following a “high value, low effort” principle. This ensures automation investments pay for themselves quickly while building momentum for more complex initiatives later.
Timestamp: 14:09–23:29
Q: How do AI and automation work together in modern IT operations?
A: AI excels at analyzing massive volumes of telemetry to detect anomalies, correlate events, and identify root causes. Automation then takes over to execute triage or remediation steps for known issues. If a problem falls outside defined guardrails, it escalates to humans. Together, AI and automation reduce noise, speed up resolution, and enable more proactive IT operations without sacrificing trust or control.
Timestamp: 27:57–30:45
