Atera is the first IT management platform to introduce agentic AI (Action AI). It includes Remote Monitoring & Management, IT Automations, Patch Management, Scripting, Helpdesk & Ticketing, and Reporting, and dozens of integrations, all from a single platform. Its AI agents enable unprecedented levels of efficiency for 12,000 internal IT teams and MSPs globally. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Atera co-founder and CEO Gil Pekelman to learn more about the company.
Gil Pekelman’s Background
What is Gil Pekelman’s background? Pekelman said:
“My name is Gil Pekelman. I’m a lifelong learner and the founder and CEO of Atera. At Atera, we’re currently focused on innovating and adding AI-powered capabilities to meet the evolving expectations and demands of IT professionals. Before founding Atera, I held senior roles at Indigo NV (now part of HP) and Exanet (acquired by Dell). I have a degree in Economics and Management from Tel-Aviv University, where I graduated Cum Laude, and I’m also the inventor of three patents. Outside of work, I’m an avid triathlete, am married, and have three daughters.”
Formation of Atera
How did the idea for the company come together? Pekelman shared:
“I started my journey at a technology company in China. Eventually, I met my co-founder, Oshri Moyal, and we decided to acquire and further develop firewall hardware. While we had no goals of founding an IT company initially, we quickly discovered that there were no compelling tools on the market to manage the challenging IT landscape effectively, making firewall software the least of the IT department’s problems. As such, we decided to sell our firewall business and use the profits to found Atera in 2011 to provide an all-in-one IT management solution.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Pekelman reflected:
“One of my favorite memories working at Atera has to be the launch of Ateraverse, our first-ever two-day virtual event. It was an incredible milestone for the company, and seeing it come together through the collaboration of all departments was nothing short of amazing. For our second Ateraverse this year, we brought together IT pioneers and experts from across the globe—partners like Microsoft, Wiz, and more—creating an atmosphere of innovation and collaboration that truly pushed the boundaries of what’s possible in our industry.”
“Watching our team and community engage with such cutting-edge discussions was an experience I’ll never forget. It represented everything we’ve been building towards—driving the future of IT forward with bold ideas and breakthrough technology.”
Core Products
Screenshot
What are the company’s core products and features? Pekelman explained:
“We serve two primary audiences: IT Departments and Managed Service Providers (MSPs). We are transforming IT management for both audiences with our all-in-one Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), Helpdesk, Ticketing, and automation platform, now powered by Action AI. Built to streamline operations, Atera empowers IT pros to efficiently manage IT infrastructure and improve service quality, ensuring customer satisfaction while empowering IT teams to efficiently manage and preemptively protect infrastructure, improve service delivery, and meet organizational needs.”
“We serve over 12,000 customers across 120 countries. Atera’s platform offers powerful tools, including patch management, comprehensive reporting and analytics, flexible billing, and more, enhanced by end-to-end AI capabilities.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Pekelman and the team faced in building the company? Pekelman acknowledged:
“Discussions around the adoption of AI are complex, especially at the corporate level. Organizations are understandably struggling with balancing their need for innovation and the multiple benefits AI can offer to productivity and efficiency with concerns around data privacy, bias, still-forming regulation, and more.”
“As leaders in the AI-powered IT space, we understand these concerns and where they’re coming from. That’s why many of our conversations focus on showcasing how responsible AI practices, combined with the expertise of cybersecurity leaders, can ensure the effective use of generative AI tools without adding undue risk.”
“For example, when we partnered with Azure Open AI, we ensured that prompts (inputs), completions (outputs), and training data were unavailable to other customers or used to improve OpenAI models. This allows us to trust generative AI to enhance efficiency and performance while adhering to ethical standards and ensuring data privacy and security.”
Evolution Of Atera’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Pekelman noted:
“You’re asking this question at a very timely moment! In July we officially launched our Copilot, and we’re already seeing incredible results from customers! Our Copilot is an AI companion that is powered by our underlying architecture called Action AI, designed to enhance IT pros’ capabilities and transform how they manage IT, and we’re continuously releasing new updates to further its abilities.”
“With Action AI, IT pros can navigate the complexities of IT operations with elevated levels of confidence and efficiency. This includes streamlining operations with AI through features like:
— Auto-generating ticket summaries and response suggestions
— Enabling employees to self-troubleshoot some of the most common IT problems (like password resets and computer reboots)
— Complex script generation from simple prompts
And even though it’s only been out for a short time, customers are reporting 11-13 hours saved on average per week, a 90% diagnostic accuracy rate, and exponentially faster ticket resolution, meaning both IT pros and their end users are already seeing a great increase in service quality all around.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Pekelman cited:
“The Atera story has come far in nearly 15 years since its founding.
— 2011: I co-founded the company alongside Oshri Moyal, our CTO
— 2016: Atera launches its first IT-specific product
— 2018: Atera is installed on more than 1 million devices
— 2022: Atera launches for enterprise IT teams
— 2024: Atera launches Copilot and Action AI
— 2025: Coming soon – Autopilot (fully autonomous AI agent)
Customer Success Stories
When asking Pekelman about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“We have a truly engaged customer community, so I like to let their reviews speak for themselves.”
“‘Atera has led to faster solutions and happier clients and frees our technicians’ time to focus on behind-the-scenes projects that help our client’s environments run smoothly. With the help of AI scripting, our techs do not have to spend as much time doing the leg work with automation as they used to. The value of this is incalculable. Happy clients and more free time for our technicians lead to a better work-life balance and the ability for our small crew to grow without the added cost of employees or the stress of upset clients.’ – Taylor Anderson, TNT Systems.”
Funding
When asking Pekelman about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We raised our Series A of $25 million in February of 2021, led by K1 Capital. This was followed by our Series B less than six months later of $77 million, led by General Atlantic. Since then, we have grown our company, revenue, and service offerings substantially.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Pekelman affirmed:
“Atera is revolutionizing IT management for technicians, IT teams, customers, and employees, from eliminating tier-1 tickets with agentic AI (Autopilot) to helping IT pros diagnose and resolve more complex issues (Copilot) resulting in a major impact on how the entire organization flows.”
With Atera’s agentic AI, end users can self-troubleshoot repetitive fixes and tasks, freeing IT technicians up to handle more complex IT issues and more strategic initiatives. This makes the support process more efficient and enables IT professionals to concentrate on critical tasks like security and addressing technical debt. As a result, response times are significantly reduced (often the top concern for IT departments), and organizational efficiency sees a tenfold increase.”
“We are also the only industry solution with rapidly adopted AI products in the market. As mentioned, Atera Copilot streamlines daily tasks by troubleshooting IT issues with real-time diagnostics and AI-recommended actions, instantly summarizing tickets, generating responses with the technician’s tone of voice, and providing proven AI solutions based on device diagnostics and ticket history.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Pekelman concluded:
“I’ve talked about Copilot—and Copilot really is revolutionary for technicians—but we’re looking to enable IT to make a positive impact across the entire organization in an even bigger way. We’re going to be releasing our Autopilot soon, which will be an end-user-facing AI that will elevate IT support and capability on multiple levels.”
“Autopilot is an AI agent that acts as a virtual Tier-1 technician that takes care of all those simple but very frequently occurring routine needs—password resets, software installations, slow connectivity, etc.—that take up most of a technician’s time today. It will basically empower any employee to solve approximately 50% of their own IT needs and problems in seconds, drastically reducing frustration and downtime and leading to significant cost savings and efficiency boosts.”
“We’re looking at a complete organizational transformation, led by a relentless IT department that leverages the most advanced technology to achieve the impossible.”
