Q&A: Sebastian Schrötel on what Tia Troubleshooting means for IT support

TeamViewer recently introduced Tia Troubleshooting, a major expansion of Tia that moves its AI-powered support from guidance to governed action. To explore what this shift means in practice, we spoke with Sebastian Schrötel, Senior Vice President Product Management at TeamViewer, about how governed autonomy is changing IT support, where human oversight still matters, and what this launch signals about the future of the autonomous digital workplace.

What is Tia Troubleshooting and what can it do now that it couldn’t do before?

Tia Troubleshooting expands Tia from an AI assistant that recommends what an IT expert should do into one that can actively diagnose and resolve the issue. During a remote support session, Tia can investigate a problem, identify the root cause, propose a fix, carry it out with human approval, and then validate that the issue has actually been resolved. The important difference is that Tia can now support the troubleshooting process from investigation through resolution, rather than focusing only on guidance.

Why is moving from AI-generated recommendations to actually taking action such an important step for IT support?

Recommendations are useful, but the IT expert still has to interpret them, determine the next step and carry out the work. Allowing AI to take approved actions removes more of that manual effort. It also changes the role AI can play in IT support: instead of simply providing information, it can help drive an issue toward resolution. That can make troubleshooting faster and allow IT teams to handle more issues without sacrificing oversight.

You describe Tia’s approach as “governed autonomy.” What does that mean in practice, and why is human oversight still important?

Governed autonomy is about giving AI greater responsibility without asking organizations to give up control. With Tia, an IT expert can allow the AI to investigate and propose a resolution but require approval before taking any actions that make changes.

We think this is important because autonomy doesn’t need to be all or nothing. Organizations can expand the role of AI at a pace that makes sense for their people, policies and risk requirements.

How does Tia troubleshoot an issue from start to finish, and how does it decide what action to recommend?

Tia starts with the context available during the remote support session, including data from the device. It can also draw on proven fixes and previous support cases from within that organization, helping it apply what the IT team has already learned.

From there, Tia uses that context to investigate likely causes and determine an appropriate resolution. It prioritizes proven approaches based on what has worked before, while also being able to generate diagnostic scripts when further investigation is needed. Once the IT expert approves the proposed action, Tia can execute it and then check whether the issue has actually been resolved.

What safeguards are in place when Tia makes changes to an employee’s device or IT environment?

Control and transparency are built into the process. The IT expert approves actions before Tia carries them out, and every action in that session is recorded. Those records are reported via Session Insights, giving IT and security teams visibility into what happened during support sessions and why.

Administrators can also determine how Tia is used across different teams. That means an organization can give some users access to guidance while allowing others to use more advanced troubleshooting and resolution capabilities.

How does Tia Troubleshooting change the role of the IT support professional, from less experienced staff to senior experts?

The goal is to let IT professionals spend less time manually working through every troubleshooting step and more time applying their expertise where it matters most. We know from our customers that diagnosing an issue and determining its root cause is often the most time-consuming part of troubleshooting. This is where Tia’s diagnostic and remediation capabilities can make a significant difference.

For less experienced support staff, Tia can provide a more structured troubleshooting process informed by previous cases and proven fixes. For experienced experts, it can accelerate investigations by analyzing device information and moving through potential causes quickly. In both cases, the IT professional remains responsible for overseeing the process and stepping in when their judgment is needed.

What does this launch tell us about TeamViewer’s broader vision for the future of IT support and the autonomous digital workplace?

We see IT moving toward greater autonomy, with the focus increasingly shifting from resolving issues faster to preventing them altogether. TeamViewer’s global research found 41% of IT decision-makers say their organization already handles some technology issues proactively. Further, 99% of IT decision-makers would delegate at least one IT-related task to an AI agent, including 53% who would delegate common device fixes and 44% who would delegate the prevention of technical issues.

This is where self-service, automation and predictive IT support start to converge. The goal isn’t to jump straight from reactive support to fully predictive IT, but to create a practical path where each stage builds on the one before it. Faster resolution of today’s issues creates knowledge from real support interactions. That knowledge can then be reused to automate known fixes before they disrupt employees. Over time, combining those learnings with experience data and AI can help surface emerging or previously unknown issues earlier and ultimately resolve more problems before users ever notice them. It creates a flywheel: every issue resolved can make the system smarter and more automated, progressively reducing digital friction. Tia Troubleshooting is an important step in building that foundation.

With this flexible, at-your-own-pace approach, we believe customers can progress from reactive IT support to proactive and ultimately predictive support — resolving issues earlier and, over time, before end users are even aware of them.

Learn more here about what Tia Troubleshooting can help your organization achieve.