Dynatrace CEO Rick McConnell expects the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and the increasing complexity of managing applications will lead to an explosion of opportunities in the observability market.

“Generative AI does have a big role in we believe increasingly assisting companies in writing code,” McConnell told SDxCentral. “You then can divert some attention from writing code manually to accelerating the delivery of applications.”

McConnell noted recent studies showed around 75 million applications will be delivered over the next few years, which will drive up the need for application monitoring. “It means that the volume and complexity of data and the number of applications out there is going to be impossible for companies to manage the way they used to,” he said.

On top of the push from AI, the use of the cloud and microservices also enables companies to now write code faster, making automation key.

"You have to automate it," he said. "And the only way to automate it is to have observability with AI that is evaluating what's happening at all times because you can't do it manually going forward."

McConnell sees AI “taking hold in a massive way” in the observability market and driving a surge of interest. Generative AI tech capabilities are going to make the lack of observability an even bigger problem than exists today for organizations, which leads to an explosion of market opportunity, he added.

While many companies are just beginning to understand the potential of AI, McConnell said Dynatrace is well ahead of the curve as it has been making sustained investments in AI and machine learning (ML).

“We've had an AI off-centered for more than a decade,” he said. “We have honed it throughout that period of time. It is used all day, every day by our customers.”

Dynatrace offers a software intelligence platform based on AI and automation capabilities. It has developed a proprietary form of causal AI called "Davis" to discover, map and monitor applications, microservices and IT infrastructure running in hybrid-cloud environments.

Contrary to GPT using an enormous store of historical data, Dynatrace’s AI engine is designed to effectively parse through billions of data points in real-time in context, identifying potential issues before they impact system performance and assisting users in adjustments and remediations.

“We are far from using historical data that existed up through 2021,” he said. “We use AI to catch aberrations in heuristic expectations that occur all day, every day, every moment. And you can see these aberrations if you apply AI in the right way. And as soon as you see those things are off the rails, you can begin to highlight that and then auto-remediate.”

Photo: Dynatrace CEO Rick McConnell. Source: Dynatrace