As more organizations embrace the advantages offered by AIOps platforms to more effectively and efficiently monitor and manage their technology estates, ScienceLogic wanted to get an objective sense of the reasons and results behind their decisions. We get a lot of feedback from our customers, and it plays an important role in how we work with individual organizations, but it’s hard for a vendor to get reliable information. So we reached out to venerable technology research firm Forrester and commissioned them to survey AIOps users to learn things like why they decided to adopt AIOps, how far along the path to maturity they are, and what features and capabilities they are taking most advantage of.

To produce the Forrester Consulting Opportunity Snapshot study, Is Mistrust of AIOps and AI-Driven Automation Hampering Digital Transformation Efforts?, Forrester surveyed 459 individuals, manager-level and above, with roles relevant to enterprise observability and the use of AIOps. They asked a series of questions about what processes they’re automating, how they measure success, what factors might prevent them from maximizing their investments in AIOps, and more. The survey was completed in February 2023. There were some interesting insights that we thought we’d share with you.

Gaining Confidence in the Power of AIOps

Right away the study’s title is intriguing. With all the buzz surrounding artificial intelligence and technologies like ChatGPT and deepfakes, could the associated controversies be spilling over into the AIOps market? The short answer is, “No.” In fact, even though organizations are enjoying the benefits of AI-driven automation in other aspects of their operations, Forrester found 54% don’t fully understand AIOps and how it can impact their business and 61% reported their organization’s corporate culture is resistant to AIOps automation. Another 37% said they were being held back by a lack of buy-in from the C-suite.

Those are interesting findings considering the way many organizations currently use AIOps to automate many of their IT operations’ foundational functions and processes, while also gaining deeper visibility and insights into nagging areas of sub-optimal IT performance. Forrester learned that many organizations are successfully using AIOps to drive essential automations, while also giving them the means to achieve more aspirational automations. Specifically, respondents said the following processes were either more automated than manual or entirely automated:

• 68% Incident Response
• 59% Incident Detection (known issues)
• 57% Workflow Analysis
• 42% Incident Remediation
• 36% Root Cause Analysis
• 34% Incident Detection (novel issues)

Speed, Size, and Complexity Come with Risks

Meanwhile, Forrester reports that as IT enterprises grow faster, larger, and more complex, there is a very real risk of harmful business service outages. Half of respondents told the firm that critical incidents increased in the last 12 months, while 66% said their organization experienced a critical issue every one to five days. That troubling statistic means that, for organizations that have invested in AIOps, there’s a need to measure performance to reveal both areas where IT operations have delivered improvements and where more attention is required. When asked to rank their top five measures of success, respondents said:

• 51% Customer Satisfaction scores
• 49% Time to Incident Resolution
• 47% Accuracy of CMDB
• 46% Time to Diagnose Root Cause
• 42% Time to Adopt New Technologies

Ultimately, organizations want to know that any technology investment they make is going to deliver tangible benefits in terms of cost reductions and improvements in reliability and productivity. It’s no different for AIOps. Forrester found that the decision makers they surveyed expected to gain “significant and transformational” benefits from AIOps in areas like reduced costs (66%), the delivery of better customer experiences (61%), and more efficient workforce allocation (46%).

AIOps Delivers Measurable Results

Despite the misgivings that a few organizations have, Forrester found that most decision-makers recognize that an investment in AIOps and AI-driven automation can deliver powerful benefits. For that reason, many plan to aggressively pursue AIOps adoption in the next 12 months. And to ensure successful integration and implementation—and to overcome trepidation—many intend to work with an experienced partner to help them map and navigate their journey and establish benchmarks for achieving ROI in areas like incident detection, incident response, and data analysis.

Finally, Forrester concluded that, “To keep pace in an increasingly complex world, organizations require AIOps and AI-driven automation solutions to reduce their reliance on humans for making decisions and taking action.” What’s more, respondents to the survey confirmed the value of AIOps when they reported their investments enabled them to reduce reliance on costly and inefficient manual processes, reduce the time required to resolve incidents, and provide better experiences for their customers.

If you’d like to download a full copy of the Forrester Opportunity Snapshot study, you can get it for free by clicking Is Mistrust of AIOps and AI-Driven Automation Hampering Digital Transformation Efforts? And if you have any questions about how ScienceLogic can help you with your AIOps journey, don’t hesitate to reach out.