A new SolarWinds report surfaces a clear paradox in IT service management: artificial intelligence is delivering on its promise, yet it isn’t easing the load for the people who use it. The 2026 State of ITSM Report, based on a global survey of more than 800 IT professionals, finds that 84% of respondents say AI has met or exceeded their ROI expectations. Even so, 52% report their overall workload has actually increased since adopting AI, and just 7% say the cost of adoption matched what they had planned for.
Time saved, then spent elsewhere
AI is genuinely cutting hours off routine tasks, saving teams an average of 3.2 hours a week on detecting and flagging issues, three hours on end-user requests, and 2.9 hours on ticket triage. Yet those gains are being offset by new work that barely existed before: managing AI tools and integrations, reviewing AI-generated outputs, and continuously training and fine-tuning models. Recurring costs like staff training and data cleanup are proving especially disruptive, with 83% of respondents now spending three or more hours weekly just keeping their AI systems running.
Still reacting, not preventing
Most teams remain focused on responding to problems rather than stopping them before they start. Only 19% say AI’s biggest impact has been preventing issues altogether, compared with the larger share crediting it for identifying and routing problems after they emerge. But budgets suggest the contrast may be shifting: 85% of organisations report year-over-year increases in AI ITSM spending.
“We’re at an inflexion point in IT service management,” said Brad McGinity, GM of ITSM, SolarWinds. “AI adoption is no longer the hard part; the hard part is building the organisational discipline to make AI actually deliver.”
