 | Newsletter — September 2026 | | Hi there, Warm greetings from the ServiceDesk Plus team! This September we're taking a deep dive into what it actually takes to run AI in your service desk. There's a guide to the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for ITSM Platforms and what it evaluates, an article on keeping AI and token costs predictable, three ways to make AI agents auditable for ITSM practitioners, and eight free extensions your cloud instance can install today. Let's dive right in. | | 5 areas to look at to accommodate AI in your service management budget SaaSflation is a real term, and the meaning behind it is increasingly familiar. The same software stack from last year costs more this year even without the purchase of additional licenses. With advances in AI, vendors have defensible reasons for raising customer costs. Your ITSM platform, the center of your IT operations, is typically where metered pricing costs you the most. This article examines five key actions you can take today to help keep your AI costs surrounding your service management predictable and justifiable by utilizing ServiceDesk Plus. Read the article  | | | 3 ways to make your AI agents auditable For service desk operations, AI has provided recommendations for a few years. AI can suggest an action, sort and categorize a request, and surface a similar ticket. But a technician needs to decide what action to take. An AI agent is different, because it can act, and the tolerance for being roughly right disappears the moment it takes that action. A challenge for service desk technicians today is deciding whether to let an AI agent run unattended and whether an AI agent can be held to the same standard as a human technician. Three key considerations are vital: | • | Grounding every action in intent and context | | • | Enforcing boundaries the AI agent cannot exceed | | • | Making every action traceable, from tool call to approval to outcome | Read the blog  | | | 8 free extensions your service desk can use today We have introduced several helpful extensions to ServiceDesk Plus on the ManageEngine Marketplace. Browse through these and install them with a single click. | • | Operational Level Agreements for the internal timelines behind every SLA | | • | Walk-In Support to log in-person requests as proper tickets | | • | Major Incident Management for a standardized P1 response | | • | CI Impact Analysis to size the blast radius before you approve | | • | Conversation Tab Translation across more than 16 languages | | • | Parent-Child Request Association for multiservice work like onboarding | | • | RCA by Zia using Kepner-Tregoe, 5 Whys, and Fishbone | | • | Post Incident Review by Zia to assemble the incident timeline for you | Read the article  | | | The 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for ITSM Platforms, and how to read it. After a three-year absence, the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for IT Service Management Platforms returned, evaluating 16 vendors on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. ManageEngine is recognized as a Challenger. A higher position on the grid is not the same thing as a better fit for your organization, and Gartner's own methodology guidance says so. This guide begins by discussing what the two axes actually measure, the seven questions worth answering about cost, adoption, residency, and AI pricing. Read the guide  | | | | Why Stagecoach stopped looking for a replacement "To this date, I've not been able to go back and say, 'It can't do this, we need to change this tool.'" — Mark Crannage, Service Desk Manager at Stagecoach One of the United Kingdom's largest public transport operators, Stagecoach, runs bus services across England, Scotland, Wales, and Guernsey for a workforce of more than 24,000, supported by a technology division of around 100. Asked by leadership to better leverage its existing ITSM platform, the IT team began a journey of maximization and maturity utilizing ServiceDesk Plus. Read the customer story  | | | | | That's a wrap on this edition of the ServiceDesk Plus newsletter. We'll be back with more exciting news next month. Meanwhile, stay in touch with us on     Until next time! The ServiceDesk Plus team | | | | © 2026. ManageEngine is a trademark of Zoho Corporation Pvt. Ltd. | | All other company and product names may be trademark of the | | respective companies with which they are associated. | | |
