Dive Brief:
- IT service management teams are broadly employing AI in their work, according to SolarWinds. The software company surveyed more than 800 technology professionals for its 2026 State of ITSM report published Tuesday.
- Respondents said they have used AI in their work for an average of roughly 15 months. AI gains are materializing, but IT professionals say workload reductions aren’t keeping pace. Teams reported saving 2.7 to 3.3 hours weekly across core tasks, yet 71% of respondents said their overall workload has stayed the same or increased.
- The findings indicate that AI is cutting time spent on some tasks while adding other responsibilities, Sean Sebring, global manager of solution engineering, ITSM at SolarWinds, told Channel Dive. “We’re seeing the empirical measurements of productivity gains, in the sense that things are being done faster. What we’re not benchmarking is the experience side for IT professionals, which is why we need to unpack more why they feel their workloads have increased or stayed the same with AI.”
Dive Insight:
Across industries, professionals have reported limited efficiency gains and nebulous returns on investments in AI. In an SAP survey of nearly 3,000 enterprise leaders, most respondents struggled to find and define ROI for their organizations. Less than half of 1,500 decision-makers surveyed by Aptean said AI was essential to their core work.
For IT service management teams surveyed by SolarWinds, AI is creating measurable value. More than 4 in 5 respondents said AI had met or exceeded ROI expectations.
The disconnect may be due to how companies define value, according to Sebring.
“When organizations are saying they're not seeing ROI, I'm wondering, what are they trying to measure?” he said. “What outcomes are they trying to measure against? I don't think that they're asking the right questions based on their intended outcomes, and I think a lot of outcomes aren't defined well.”
In an average week, IT professionals saved 3.3 hours detecting and flagging issues, 3 hours responding to end-user requests and 2.9 hours in triaging tickets and uploading knowledge base articles, per the report.
AI is also adding new responsibilities for ITSM teams, which may be why respondents felt they were not saving much time, Sebring said.
Managing AI tools, integrating and reviewing AI-generated outputs, and training models are the top tasks AI is adding to the work week, according to the report. Nearly three-quarters of respondents reported spending three or more hours weekly on AI maintenance, with 44% spending over six hours.
To maximize AI value, SolarWinds recommends teams make more disciplined decisions about where AI is applied and how success is measured. Data foundations are important, too. IT professionals should assess and optimize their current practices and data before applying automation, according to Sebring.
“They say garbage in, garbage out,” he said. “If your existing data and practices aren’t in great shape, then you’re just going to speed up how much garbage you get.”
