At nearly 600 employees and growing rapidly, legal technology leader Ironclad faced a critical inflection point. Their IT support was buckling under the weight of scale, with a single help desk team drowning in an ocean of access requests. The solution they found didn’t just solve their immediate crisis-it fundamentally transformed how employees interact with IT support.

Problem & Goals

A lean IT Team, 600 Employees, and a Drowning Help Desk

The math was brutal and unsustainable. Ironclad’s help desk was processing 100-150 tickets weekly, with the volume steadily climbing toward 1,000 monthly requests. explains, Ironclad’s Manager of IT Engineering.

The situation was reaching a breaking point. With rapid company growth resuming after a strategic pause, the existing approach simply wouldn’t scale without fundamental changes to their IT support model.

From Spreadsheet Chaos to Scalability Crisis

Behind the ticket volume lay a deeper operational challenge. Ironclad’s access management relied on manual spreadsheet tracking of applications, approvers, and system groups. “Managing access requests manually is never a good idea because it’s error prone, inconsistent, and your time-to- resolution suffers,” Toby reflects. The process was particularly vulnerable during coverage gaps, when team members unfamiliar with specific workflows would rush through requests, inevitably missing critical details.

Search for a Solution

The Expensive, Clunky, and Overcomplicated Options

Ironclad’s search for an AI-powered solution began with industry leaders but the evaluation process quickly revealed fundamental flaws in existing approaches. Price was certainly a factor, but the deeper issue was user experience design that felt counterintuitive and frustrating.

“The problem we faced is other AI support bots were not confident in themselves. If you asked, ‘Can I have access to Salesforce?’ It would respond, ‘do you want access to Salesforce?’ Or worse it wouldn’t find the app at all,” Toby explains. This lack of decisiveness transformed simple requests into multi-step confirmation loops that defeated the purpose of automation.

Why Premium Tools Failed the User Experience Test

The team also evaluated dedicated Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) tools. While technically capable, these solutions created new operational burdens that offset their benefits.

The fragmented experience, requiring employees to learn separate interfaces and workflows, violated a core principle that guided Ironclad’s evaluation: “If we wouldn’t use it, we wouldn’t make other people use it.”

Initial Solution Discovery

Finding the “Drive-Through” IT Experience Employees Craved

When Ironclad discovered Risotto, the contrast was immediately apparent. Instead of hesitant confirmation loops, Risotto demonstrated confidence in its decision-making, taking requests at face value and delivering instant resolutions when possible.

The philosophical difference resonated deeply with Toby’s vision for IT support.

This approach aligned perfectly with Ironclad’sgoal of maintaining employee trust and encouraging continued engagement with IT services.

When Lightning-Fast Development Became a Competitive Advantage

Beyond the product capabilities, Ironclad was impressed by Risotto’s partnership approach to customer feedback and feature development. The responsiveness would prove crucial during implementation, as Ironclad’s needs evolved and edge cases emerged.

Full Rollout & Impact

Wednesday Requests, Friday Deliveries: A Partnership That Delivers

The implementation experience set the tone for a true partnership. This rapid iteration cycle created an almost game-like dynamic: “Brandon and I were doing scavenger hunts every morning, looking for new menus, new buttons, and most of the time there was something.

The speed of development wasn’t just impressive, it was strategically valuable. Features that would have taken months to implement through traditional enterprise software vendors were deployed in days, allowing Ironclad to continuously optimize their workflows without long development cycles.

90% Automation Unlocks Growth Without Additional Headcount

Today, Risotto achieves a 90% automation rate across Ironclad’s access-related IT requests, with 40-50 applications fully integrated into intelligent access workflows. The transformation extends beyond simple ticket deflection to fundamental process improvement.

Complex multi-application requests that previously required extensive manual coordination now resolve automatically. Time-based access controls prevent license sprawl while maintaining security. Non-SSO applications that once required manual admin intervention now leverage Risotto’s grantor flows for seamless provisioning.

Transforming IT from Bottleneck to Business Enabler

The employee response validated the strategic decision. “We include Risotto in all our onboarding material now, and once people see how useful it is they keep coming back to use it more which is a really good sign,” Toby explains. Perhaps more telling is how Risotto has integrated into Ironclad’s operational fabric. Access rule creation is now a standard checklist item during new application procurement, ensuring that automation capabilities are designed into workflows from the beginning rather than retrofitted later.

What’s Ahead

From IT Automation to Enterprise-Wide Agent Orchestration

Ironclad’s vision extends beyond IT ticket automation. They’re already leveraging Risotto across HR, Workplace, and Security teams, with plans to continue to deepen their usage of Risotto’s unified, AI-powered system.

The broader strategic opportunity involves orchestrating multiple specialized AI agents across the organization. Rather than seeking one tool that does everything, Ironclad envisions a network of purpose-built agents that excel in their specific domains while seamlessly handing off complex requests when needed.

Building Tomorrow’s Specialized AI Ecosystem Today

This approach reflects a sophisticated understanding of AI’s true potential in enterprise operations. Instead of replacing human expertise with generic automation, the goal is augmenting specialized knowledge with intelligent routing and task orchestration.

As Ironclad continues to grow, their Risotto implementation provides a proven foundation for this vision, demonstrating that the future of enterprise AI isn’t about building one superintelligent system, but rather about creating networks of specialized agents that know their roles and execute them flawlessly.

The transformation from spreadsheet chaos to 90% automation represents more than operational efficiency. It’s a blueprint for how growing companies can leverage AI to scale human expertise rather than simply replacing it, creating sustainable competitive advantages through intelligent automation.