The AI Test: Three Requirements Every Network Automation Vendor Should Meet

AI is increasingly being integrated into network infrastructure, often included in ELAs, regardless of whether you requested it. This isn’t necessarily a bad development; AI can significantly enhance security, compliance, and resilience for NetOps teams. However, before integrating it into your infrastructure, it must earn your trust.

In a recent article published in VMblog on July 30, BackBox CEO Rekha Shenoy discusses three essential requirements that every vendor should fulfill.

1. Transparency

It’s important to understand the data the AI is using and how it applies it. Infrastructure vendors have vast amounts of data collected over the years, and normalizing it to align with your specific environment can be challenging. If AI is suggesting or implementing changes to your network, you deserve clear visibility into the data behind those decisions, rather than being left in the dark.

2. Explainability

Trust goes beyond simply providing an answer. It’s important to ask why and seek a thorough explanation that includes the sources used and the steps taken to reach that conclusion. This is especially crucial in multi-vendor environments, where a vulnerability in one device may or may not impact others, and where ITSM and CMDB systems introduce additional layers of complexity driven by AI. Without proper explainability, you cannot validate the output, identify errors, or effectively consider different alternatives.

3. Accountability

AI does not own the outcomes; people do. This is why selecting the right use cases is so important. Reserve AI for tasks where mistakes can be corrected and where substantial efficiency gains are achievable, such as in vulnerability risk mitigation, compliance reporting, and remediation. For high-stakes work that demands human judgment, especially when errors cannot be tolerated, maintain oversight through checkpoints and exception-based alerts to keep people involved. This approach protects you from “cognitive surrender,” the gradual shift to autopilot mode that can leave you unprepared when something goes wrong.

Why it matters

Integrating AI into an ELA should not simply mean adding more software. When implemented correctly, with transparency, explainability, and accountability, AI can serve as a true force multiplier for NetOps teams. It enables them to gain visibility into increasingly complex networks, make quicker decisions, and build genuine cyber resilience.

Read the full article or learn how BackBox uses AI to enable NetOps teams to automate network device lifecycle management and security operations reliably; visit our platform page. Ready to get started? Request a demo to see BackBox in action.