016 - AI Agents for IT Admins

In this episode of SysAdmin Weekly, Andy sits down with Mike Nelson to talk about how SysAdmins can harness the power of Generative AI to make their day-to-day lives easier. From writing PowerShell scripts to reducing cognitive load during incidents, Andy and Mike break down real-world use cases that go beyond hype.They dive into what AI agents really are, how large language models (LLMs) fit in, and introduce the concept of Model Context Protocol (MCP), a game-changer for future infrastructure automation. Mike shares his home automation experiments, Andy nerds out about running open-source models locally with Ollama, and together they discuss where tools like Microsoft Copilot and Azure MCP might take SysAdmins next.If you’ve ever wondered how AI can move from buzzword to genuine productivity tool in IT operations, this episode is for you!---Episode Resources---- SysAdmin Weekly Companion Newsletter- AndyOnTech- Project Runspace- ProPublica article on Microsoft support risk- Ollama GitHub Repository- Open WebUI for Ollama- Azure Model Context Protocol (MCP) Overview- GitHub MCP Servers Repository (Awesome MCP)