AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 18, 2026--
SolarWinds, a leading provider of simple, powerful, secure observability and IT management software, today released its 2026 State of ITSM Report, which studies how IT teams are using AI in their Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) workflows. The report, based on a survey of IT professionals around the world, surfaces a growing paradox: AI is broadly meeting ROI expectations in IT service management, but for most teams, it is not yet easing the burden on the people doing the work.
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Eighty-four percent of respondents say AI has met or exceeded ROI expectations, and they report meaningful time savings across core ITSM tasks. Yet 52% say their overall workload has increased since adopting AI, and only 7% say the cost of AI adoption matched what they planned for. After an average of about 16 months using AI in their ITSM environment, most teams are still managing AI’s overhead rather than realizing its full potential.
The AI Productivity and Cost Enigma
The data makes clear that AI creates real productivity gains. Respondents report AI saves an average of 3.2 hours per week on detecting and flagging issues, 3.0 hours on end-user requests, and 2.9 hours on ticket triage. But those savings are largely being reinvested into a new category of work that did not exist at the same scale before AI:
The costs that catch organizations off-guard compound this further. The top surprise expenses — staff training (48%), data quality and cleanup (47%), and ongoing tuning and maintenance (45%) — are not one-time setup costs. They are recurring parts of the operating model, and more than four in five respondents (83%) now spend three or more hours per week just keeping their AI systems running reliably.
Despite clear productivity gains, IT teams are discovering that AI isn’t reducing their workload; it’s reshaping it.
Reactive Instead of Proactive
Despite significant maturity in AI adoption, most ITSM teams are still using AI to respond to problems rather than prevent them. When asked where AI has had the greatest impact across the incident lifecycle, respondents cited identifying issues before they impact users (31%) and prioritizing and routing issues (23%) as the top two areas, which are both fundamentally reactive responses to problems that have already emerged. Only 19% cited preventing issues before they occur as the area of greatest impact.
This reactive posture points to a gap between AI adoption and AI maturity. The tools are in place. The missing piece is the infrastructure, data foundation, and organizational discipline to move AI upstream into prevention. Budget momentum suggests organizations know this: 85% say their AI in ITSM budget has increased year-over-year, with 36% saying it has increased significantly, and agentic workflows, the most proactive AI capability category, show the highest expected investment growth of any area in the survey.
An Intentional Approach is Best
Organizations can avoid inflating AI workloads and unexpected costs by taking a more intentional approach to AI implementation. IT leaders should build the right infrastructure and governance to enable proactive AI adoption, including:
“We’re at an inflection point in IT service management. AI adoption is no longer the hard part — the hard part is building the organizational discipline to make AI actually deliver,” said Brad McGinity, GM of ITSM, SolarWinds. “The teams that get this right aren’t just running a faster service desk; they’re running a fundamentally different operation. At SolarWinds, our job is to make that transition as straightforward as possible — giving customers the platform, the data foundation, and the governance they need to move from AI activity to real AI payoff.”
For the full 2026 State of ITSM Report, visit here. For more information on SolarWinds ITSM offerings, visit here.
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SolarWinds is a leading provider of simple, powerful, secure observability and IT management software built to enable customers to accelerate their digital transformation. Our solutions provide organizations worldwide—regardless of type, size, or complexity—with a comprehensive and unified view of today’s modern, distributed, and hybrid network environments. We continuously engage with IT service and operations professionals, DevOps and SecOps professionals, and database administrators (DBAs) to understand the challenges they face in maintaining high-performing and highly available hybrid IT infrastructures, applications, and environments. The insights we gain from them, in places like our THWACK community, allow us to address customers’ needs now and in the future. Our focus on the user and our commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT management have established SolarWinds as a worldwide leader in solutions for observability, IT service management, application performance, and database management. Learn more today at www.solarwinds.com.
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2026 State of ITSM Report, SolarWinds
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska voters are choosing candidates for November's general election in a series of primary contests Tuesday, including a U.S. Senate race that will be among the most closely watched in the nation this fall.
The campaign featured over a dozen contenders in each of the top races — for Senate, U.S. House and governor. Under Alaska’s open primary system, all candidates appear on the same ballot, and the four who receive the most votes qualify for the ranked vote general election.
Tuesday's ballot also included candidates running for the Legislature and a statewide initiative that would reimpose campaign contribution limits in state and local elections.
The highest-profile candidates in a field of 16 were two-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola.
The race, which could help determine control of the Senate, has drawn significant attention from outside groups, with Republican and Democratic campaign organizations identifying it as a top target. Peltola shook up her campaign leadership days before the primary.
During the campaign, Sullivan, a veteran and ally of President Donald Trump, emphasized his support for the military, efforts to open more land for oil development and Trump's signature tax and spending bill passed last year. He accused Peltola of being aligned with Lower 48 “liberals.”
Peltola leaned into the “fish, family, freedom” slogan that first got her elected in 2022. She has criticized a political system that she said is rigged by special interests and allows politicians to enrich themselves.
But it was a third candidate, a Republican also named Dan Sullivan, who garnered much of the attention.
Dan J. Sullivan won a legal fight to appear on the ballot following claims by the senator and GOP allies that he was a sham candidate running at the behest of Democrats with the intent of causing confusion. Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from the island community of Petersburg, denied that and said his run was spurred by frustration with the incumbent.
He appeared on the ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation — a decision that a state elections official said was intended to minimize possible confusion. Meanwhile, the senator was listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent. The “incumbent” label does not accompany the names of any other candidates seeking reelection.
The drama involving the dueling Dan Sullivans caught the attention of Trump. In a social media post endorsing the senator days before the primary, he called the other's candidacy an attempt to trick voters and urged his followers to vote for “SULLIVAN, DAN S.”
In the race for Alaska's only House seat, the most prominent candidates were Republican Rep. Nick Begich, seeking a second term, and independent Bill Hill, a fisherman and former educator from a small southwestern village.
Progressive Democrat Matt Schultz suspended his campaign last month but remained on the ballot. His campaign said Schultz would withdraw as a general election candidate if he makes the primary's top four.
Schultz urged support for Hill, who leaned into concerns about affordability. Begich, who was endorsed by Trump, cast himself as hardworking and effective in his role. House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared at a rally for Begich in a conservative part of the state this month, though the event was closed to news media.
The campaign for the state’s top executive office was an open race this year because Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy was barred by term limits from seeking a third consecutive stint.
Two Democrats hope to emerge from a crowded, largely Republican field: former state lawmakers Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Tom Begich, who is Nick Begich's uncle. If one of them wins in November, he would become Alaska's first Democratic governor since Tony Knowles left office in 2002.
Republicans in the race included Bernadette Wilson, a businessperson and conservative activist; Click Bishop, a former state labor commissioner and lawmaker; Dave Bronson, former mayor of Anchorage; and Adam Crum and Treg Taylor, two former members of Dunleavy's Cabinet.
Former Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, was also on the ballot.
The lone measure before voters on the primary ballot asked them to reimpose campaign contribution limits five years after a divided federal appeals court struck down a number of caps.
The measure proposes a $2,000 limit on how much individuals can give to candidates in state and local elections and a $5,000 cap on what they can give to political parties. It would also limit spending by groups other than political parties and how much individuals and groups can give to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor.
Supporters say such limits are needed to prevent special interests and wealthy donors from having outsize influence on a campaign or race. Opponents say the measure would favor candidates with name recognition and argue that restricting what someone can contribute limits their voice.
Political spending by wealthy people has become a flashpoint in races in Alaska and elsewhere. In 2025 in Wisconsin, billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros helped push spending in a state Supreme Court campaign past $100 million, the most ever for a court race in the U.S.
FILE - Alaska Republican U.S. Rep. Nick Begich walks down a corridor in the state Capitol before giving a speech to Alaska lawmakers, March 10, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
FILE - Alaska U.S. House candidate Bill Hill, an independent, speaks with people at a campaign fundraising event in Juneau, Alaska, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
FILE - Dan Sullivan, a candidate in Alaska's U.S. Senate race who shares his name with the incumbent seeking reelection, talks with a reporter, July 3, 2026, in Petersburg, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
FILE - Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, June 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola, a Democrat, speaks during a campaign rally on May 14, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, file)
