Observability

AI Agent in SolarWinds Observability SaaS (Preview)

The SolarWinds AI Agent in SolarWinds Observability SaaS lets you ask natural‑language questions about your monitored environment directly inside the product UI, so you can get practical answers without building custom reports or drilling through multiple dashboards.

First published date

2/17/2026 7:01 AM

Last published date

6/8/2026 8:34 PM

Overview

The AI Agent focuses on:

  • Quick data access of all entity types, their health, and insights into key metrics. Users can also get information on active alerts in the system.

How to access the AI Agent in SolarWinds Observability SaaS

Once the feature is enabled in your SolarWinds Observability SaaS tenant, the AI Agent is available directly in the UI:

  • Look for the AI icon in the top-right of the observability interface.

  • Click the icon (  ) to open the AI panel and start asking questions in natural language.

Because this feature is delivered as part of the SaaS service, there is no separate on‑premises connector or agent to install on your own infrastructure just to use the AI Agent in SaaS. Connection and data handling are managed within the SolarWinds Observability SaaS platform.

Note: If you also run SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted and want to use the AI Agent with that environment, you will need to configure Platform Connect so Self-Hosted data is securely available to SaaS. See “Using the AI Agent with Self-Hosted deployments” below.

As with other AI features, behavior and scope may evolve over time as we refine and expand capabilities.

Product section

SolarWinds Observability

Resolution

What the AI Agent does

Observability and current state insights

The AI Agent is designed to answer questions about the current state of your environment, with a strong focus on:

  • Entities – health, status, and top resource consumers

  • Metrics – capacity, utilization, and thresholds

  • Active alerts – severity, affected entities, and recent activity

Example prompts include:

  • What are the critical alerts active on my service?

     

  • List all the websites I am monitoring

     

  • How many databases are in an unhealthy state?

     

  • Why is the health of this service bad?

The more specific you are (entity types, time windows, metrics), the more targeted the responses will be.

What the AI Agent does not do

The current AI Agent's behavior is intentionally constrained. Based on the published preview guidance for the feature, keep these limitations in mind:

  • Limited scope of data

    • The focus is on the current state of the system. It can tell you about your entities, attributes, and active alerts.

    • Access to additional data domains may be limited or unavailable, especially while the broader AI Agent feature set continues to evolve.

  • Read‑only insights

    • The AI Agent is about observational insights, not automation.

    • It does not change configurations, run scripts, or perform remediation actions.

    • The AI Agent does not perform any investigations or deep root cause analysis.

  • Dependent on the quality of your data

    • Responses reflect what is in your monitored data and configuration.

    • If data is missing, stale, or misconfigured, the answers will mirror those gaps.

  • Generative caveats

    • As with many generative AI capabilities, some answers may be incomplete or imprecise.

    • Always validate critical guidance before making production changes.

Data use and privacy

  • The AI Agent works against your organization’s monitored data in SolarWinds Observability to provide context‑aware answers about your environment.

  • SolarWinds does not use customer data to train the underlying models, which helps protect the privacy and uniqueness of your environment.

For additional details about how data is secured and transmitted when Self-Hosted environments are involved, see the Platform Connect documentation referenced below.

 

Chat history

  • Conversations are stored in the cloud for 30 days, and you can get back to them in the History tab. This is not configurable.

  • Chat history is available per user and deployment. Users only see their own history in each deployment.

     

  • Chat conversations can be up to 10 prompts long, then the user is asked to start a new chat.

  • You can ask about historical data, such as daily averages last week.

  • Users can see how many characters they can still include in a prompt.

     

  • Users can rate the answers (thumbs up/thumbs down)

     

 

Using the AI Agent with Self-Hosted deployments (Platform Connect)

If you also operate SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted and want the AI Agent (running in SaaS) to work with data from your Self-Hosted deployment, you must configure Platform Connect.

At a high level, Platform Connect:

  • Lets you send SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted data to SolarWinds Observability SaaS so you can see Self-Hosted nodes in SaaS and use features like anomaly‑based alerting there.

To configure Platform Connect (for customers using both deployments):

  1. In SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted, log in as an administrator and go to:
    Settings > All settings > Platform Connect > Add/Edit Platform Connector.

  2. Follow the setup wizard to connect to your SolarWinds Observability SaaS tenant. You will generate or provide an API token in SaaS and supply it to the wizard, which then installs and configures the SolarWinds Observability SaaS Agent on your Self-Hosted server.

Once Platform Connect is set up, Self-Hosted entities can be surfaced in SaaS, and SaaS‑side capabilities (including the AI Agent) can use that data, consistent with the current scope of supported entities and functionality.

 

Single Button Enablement

Single Button Enablement simplifies the activation of Platform Connect by reducing the entire setup process to a single, intuitive action. This streamlined approach allows you to:

  • Enable Platform Connect instantly from a single page or toggle—no multi-step wizard required

  • Quickly unlock AI-driven features across Observability SaaS and SWOSH with minimal effort

  • Maintain administrative control by restricting enablement to admin users

  • Allow non-admin users to request enablement through notifications directly in the SW1 chat window

Users without administrator privileges can use this window to contact the administrator and request that the SW1 agent be activated:

 

The administrator will be notified:

 

All administrators will then see:

 
 

Administrator page to activate SW1 agent:

 

The "Agree and Connect" button will connect you to the platform. The advanced setup wizard will redirect you to a wizard where you can connect to the platform, for example, by using an existing token.

Advanced configuration

 

 

For offline environments, the HideIconToAllUsers setting has been adjusted so that it now hides the cloud-connected and SW1 icons from all users. If this setting is checked, the SW1 icon may still appear if OSH is connected and the SW1 agent is running.

 
A typical settings page after a successful connection.
 
The mega menu: if installation is not succeeded, the blue icon turns to yellow.

 

Troubleshooting notes (Platform Connect / Self-Hosted context)

If you are using the AI Agent against Self-Hosted data via Platform Connect and the connection is failing, consult the Platform Connect troubleshooting guidance:

  • Ensure required firewall paths are open (for example, *.amazontrust.com:80 and *.ss2.us:80 for online certificate status validation).

  • Verify that the SolarWinds Observability SaaS Agent installation completed successfully in the Self-Hosted environment.

Known issues

  • The AI Agent does not function correctly on Additional Websites. Please use your Primary Website to interact with the Agent.

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