As a follow-up to a global 2023 IT service management (ITSM)-focused survey on artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in IT organizations that showed significant growth in AI interest and use, two separate surveys focused on the state of AI adoption in North America were conducted in November 2023.
The first survey posed AI-related questions to IT professionals, and the second to end-users. The demographic breakdown for the 250 IT professionals and 750 end-users that responded is included in Appendices 1 and 2, respectively.
Note from the author
This survey is a great snapshot of where North American IT organizations are with the adoption of AI, with most still assessing the opportunities and understanding what’s involved.
However, the most interesting survey insight is the high level of end-user free AI tool use, with close to three-quarters already using free AI tools such as ChatGPT to help improve their productivity.
It’s an unpreventable iteration of the traditional “Shadow IT”issue (and opportunity) that IT organizations need to carefully manage in 2024
Stephen Mann
Principal Analyst and Content Director, ITSM.tools
Lead Author
Stephen Mann
Founder, ITSM.tools
Roy Atkinson
CEO, Clifton Butterfield
James Finister
AI Ethicist
John Custy
ITSM Consultant, JPC Group
Syachfri Tjhia
Head of IT, Catalyst Education
Alan Berkson
Founder, Intelligist Group
Phyllis Drucker
Service Management Thought Leader
Doug Tedder
Principal, Tedder Consulting
Key insights
75% of end-user respondents stated that they’re already using free AI tools like ChatGPT for their work.
The most common use cases were:
Creative ideation or problem-solving (34%)
Email drafting or editing (30%)
Content creation or editing (26%)
The majority of IT respondents (58%) said their organizations were still in the early stages of AI adoption.
Planning (20%)
Early exploration (24%)
Pilot projects (14%)
Only 11% had no plans for AI adoption in IT.
The IT team was the originator of AI adoption activities in IT in nearly two-thirds of organizations (61%), with the C-suite accounting for one-quarter (24%).
In organizations where the C-suite had originated the need, AI adoption had progressed less than those where the IT team had done this.
More than half (52%) of IT respondents stated that their organizations are spending at least 5% of their IT budgets on AI.
When the data is limited to only the organization with AI spend, this is 74%.
The three most stated benefits of AI adoption in IT are:
Data analytics and synthesizing insights (45%)
Chatbots for self-service adoption (38%)
Improving employee experience (34%)
Workflow automation and optimization (34%)
The top three barriers to AI adoption for IT professionals are:
Customer data security (42%)
Additional cost (39%)
Inaccuracy or inconsistency (33%)
We also asked IT professionals to specify the business areas where AI shouldn’t be used. The top three responses were:
Ethical and legal decision-making (41%)
People management (30%)
Customer relationship management (29%)
Only a quarter (26%) of end-user respondents were happy with how their IT support team worked.
36% of end-user respondents were happy with their IT teams’ use of AI, and another 19% would like them to start using it.
When the “Don’t know” responses are removed, this is 46% and 25%, respectively, and 71% in total.
Survey insights
IT professionals
The AI adoption state
It can be hard for organizations to understand whether they’re ahead of or behind the AI adoption curve. To help, the first “core” survey question asked the respondents to describe their organizations’ current AI adoption state.
The key data points are:
The majority of respondents (58%) said their organizations were still in the early stages of AI adoption – either planning (20%), early exploitation (24%), or pilot projects (14%).
27% of respondents have progressed past the AI pilot projects stage to have functioning AI capabilities in IT.
Only 11% of respondents stated that their organizations have no plans for AI adoption in IT.
Although, the selection of some of these options might have been dependent on respondent interpretation. Eg. whether the addition and use of AI-enabled capabilities within existing SaaS software was considered AI adoption.
Security and compliance
Ask the vendor for their security certificates. Look for SOC2, ISO27001, and CSA STAR. If your industry or regions of operations mandate specific compliance – like HIPAA for healthcare and GDPR/CCPA if you have employees or customers in EU/California – ask for those too. Additionally, find out where your data would be stored/hosted.
For AI systems, ensure that your org data will not be used to train their language models and that it can recognize proprietary data/PII and handle it appropriately.
You can’t get fired for buying ServiceNow -Ancient IT proverb
Disclaimer: This guide has been put together by the team at Atomicwork. But other than the last couple of slides, it aims to provide an objective and valuable analysis for IT professionals looking for a new ITSM solution without a disguised sales pitch :)
Security and compliance
Ask the vendor for their security certificates. Look for SOC2, ISO27001, and CSA STAR. If your industry or regions of operations mandate specific compliance – like HIPAA for healthcare and GDPR/CCPA if you have employees or customers in EU/California – ask for those too. Additionally, find out where your data would be stored/hosted.
For AI systems, ensure that your org data will not be used to train their language models and that it can recognize proprietary data/PII and handle it appropriately.
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If you align with our product philosophy and feel that this will be the future of ITSM, schedule a demo to understand how all this looks in practice.
Built with enterprise-grade security and compliance
Getting started in a familiar environment with AI applications built into ITSM tool capabilities makes it easier for administrators to gain experience working with AI and can help IT make a business case for other, more costly options.
Consider this an easy call to action: start where you are. Learn what your current ITSM tool can support using AI and leverage those capabilities, then grow into other areas.
Phyllis Drucker
Author, Keynote Speaker, Service Management Thought Leader