DashAI: Putting Network Management at Your Fingertips
Blog
Managing a modern network is no small feat. For companies with even the most well-staffed IT teams, the sheer complexity of provisioning services, monitoring uptime, juggling dozens of contracts, and scaling connectivity can feel like an impossible balancing act.
Traditionally, navigating these tasks has meant lengthy phone calls, complex ordering processes, and waiting days, or sometimes weeks, for changes to take effect. If you didn’t have a dedicated network architect on staff, simple updates could turn into major headaches.
But the landscape is shifting. Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platforms like Zayo’s DynamicLink are emerging as the solution to overwhelming network complexity, offering agility and control that legacy models simply can’t match. At the forefront of this evolution is a new kind of partner: the AI assistant.
When built correctly, an AI assistant is far more than just a chatbot that answers generic questions. It becomes an extension of your IT team, offering 24/7 expertise and tackling results-based tasks that bridge the gap between complex infrastructure and simple, operational goals.
Simplifying Network Management with DynamicLink
For large enterprises like regional retail chains, healthcare providers, media companies, and financial institutions, connectivity is vital, but managing it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. DynamicLink, a true Gartner-defined Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) product offering from Zayo, delivers a self-service model for customers to create and manage our entire portfolio of Network Connectivity services in real-time with built-in security and detailed network observability.
DynamicLink streamlines the entire process of planning, organizing, configuring, and deploying WAN and IP services, empowering teams to take control of their network configuration. With an easy-to-use portal, robust APIs, and an integrated AI Assistant, DynamicLink gives teams the boost they need to get the most of their network resources.
Enter DashAI: Your New Network Architect
To help bridge the expertise gap for teams of all sizes, Zayo has introduced DashAI, an industry-first AI assistant integrated directly into the DynamicLink platform. DashAI represents a shift from simply managing a network to conversing with it.
Unlike generic AI tools that scrape the open web for answers to your questions, DashAI is a specialized network expert, with every answer grounded in Zayo’s specific, verified knowledge base. This means it doesn’t guess; it knows the specific architecture of the DynamicLink platform by heart.
DashAI is a core component of Zayo’s commitment to empowering organizations with greater insight and agility, and is included at no extra cost to all DynamicLink users. Experience the power of a network that listens, understands, and acts. For customers with lean IT teams, this is a game-changer. Here is how a purpose-built AI assistant transforms daily operations:
1.Eliminating Setup Confusion
Configuring network services often involves navigating multiple menus and ensuring compatibility between various parameters. It’s easy to get lost or make mistakes.
DashAI acts as a guide. Instead of clicking through endless tabs, you can use natural language to state your intent, and DashAI will light the way. For example, asking, “Create a new 1G E-Line service between our port in Chicago and our port in New York,” triggers the assistant to initiate the specific provisioning workflow you need. It removes the guesswork, ensuring that the services you order are exactly what you intended.
2. Saving Valuable Time
In the world of operations, time is currency. Every minute spent searching for documentation or waiting on hold for support is a minute lost.
DashAI provides instant answers, and action. Whether you need to find a specific procedure, check the status of a circuit, or troubleshoot a latency issue, the information is retrieved in seconds. This immediacy allows your team to move at the speed of business, not the speed of a support ticket.
3. Bridging the Expertise Gap
With DashAI, technical barriers are dismantled. If you need to understand the difference between E-Line and an E-LAN service (and how to establish these connections), or how to configure a cloud on-ramp to your Cloud Service Provider of choice, you simply ask.
DashAI provides clear, synthesized answers tailored to your specific context. It acts as an always-on mentor for your team, empowering teams to handle complex network tasks with confidence.
Beyond the Chatbot: A True Operational Tool
What makes DashAI truly distinct is that it evolves from a simple Q&A bot into an operational tool. It is designed to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations safely and efficiently.
Here is what that looks like in action:
“Provision a new 500 Mbps connection to AWS in us-east-1 using my existing port.”
DashAI establishes your cloud connection in real time, ready as soon as your AWS credentials are verified.
“Create a new 1 Gbps E-Line service between our port in Chicago and our port in New York.”
DashAI immediately creates your new point-to-point Ethernet Connection after approving and providing additional details if needed.
“Show me the bandwidth utilization stats for circuit ID ZYO-12345 for the last 24 hours.”
DashAI displays a chart or summary of the requested statistics directly in the chat.
“Summarize my network statistics.”
DashAI provides details on network connections, bandwidth usage, latency, and app performance.
“Decommission the Layer 2 service with ID ZYO-98765.”
InsideIQ presents a critical warning and requires explicit confirmation before initiating the de-provisioning process.
“Replace my E-line between Atlanta and New York with an ELAN between Atlanta, New York, and Chicago.”
DashAI requests you provide bandwidth and VLAN details, then replaces your E-line with an ELAN configuration in less than a minute.
DashAI interprets these commands, presents a summary of the change and associated cost, and asks for your confirmation. It puts the power of execution into simple English.
Crucially, DashAI prioritizes safety and security. No service-impacting change is ever executed without the customers explicit approval, leaving you always in the driver’s seat with DashAI as your navigator. This approach ensures you get the efficiency of automation with the security and control enterprise compliance demands.
Why “Built Right” Matters
Not all AI is created equal. We have all seen examples of AI confidently inventing facts. In a creative writing context, that’s a quirk. In network infrastructure, it’s a liability.
That is why the architecture behind DashAI matters. By utilizing RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology, DashAI first searches the curated DynamicLink knowledge base before generating an answer. This ensures that the advice it gives is domain-accurate and grounded in reality. It doesn’t feed you generic assumptions; it gives you actionable intelligence based on the reality of your network.
For users who prefer stability and reliability, this distinction is vital. It means you can trust the tool to be an accurate extension of your operations team.
The Future of Network Management is Here
Technology should always simplify, not complicate. For too long, network management has been a realm of high complexity, accessible only to those with deep technical specialization.
With DynamicLink and DashAI, Zayo is equalizing access to high-performance connectivity, empowering IT leaders to be the architects of their own networks, regardless of their team size or technical depth.