ServiceOps 2024: automation and (gen)AI-powered IT service and operations

Get insights into EMA’s third annual global research into real-world ServiceOps.

Some of the key findings include:
- 75% of organizations have a ServiceOps initiative either formal or informal.
- 50% of those organizations with mature (2+ years) ServiceOps initiatives in place report IT service quality as outstanding compared to 18% just beginning.
- 80% of CxOs say they’ve reorganized to take advantage of AI and automation.
- For 78% of organizations the impact of unplanned work is high or significant. More than one quarter of the panel report loss of more than 25% productivity.
- 58% of the research participants anticipate that GenAI will cut MTTR by 50% or more

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ServiceOps2024
Automation and (gen)AI-powered
IT service and operations
Valerie O’Connell
Research Director - Digital Service Execution
Enterprise Management Associates
Sponsored by

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Watch the On-Demand Webinar
•ServiceOps 2024: automation and (gen)AI-powered IT service and
operations On-Demand Webinar:
https://info.enterprisemanagement.com/serviceops-2024-webinar-ss
•Check out upcoming webinars from EMA here:
https://www.enterprisemanagement.com/freeResearch
© 2023 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.

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@ema _resea rch
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Featured Speaker
Valerie O’Connell
Research Director
Digital Service Execution
Valerie O’Connell leads the Digital Service Execution
practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA).
Her practice encompasses intersections and innovations
across AIOps, asset management, end-user experience,
ITSM/ESM, and business context as they interact to
deliver excellence in digital service.
Valerie came to EMA with decades of senior-level
experience in the effective marketing of technology. Her
experience ranges from VP of product marketing at
what was then CA to a successful run as an independent
practitioner, serving industry as well as cutting-edge
startups.
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 3

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@ema _resea rch
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Sponsors
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 4

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75% of organizations have a ServiceOps initiative, either formal or informal
A working definition
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 5
ServiceOps is a technology-enabled approach to unifying IT service and IT operations
for excellence and efficiency in delivery of digital business services.
It is:
People-centric
Technology-enabled
Management supported
It’s also:
Common sense and practical
Results-driven
Rapidly growing in adoption

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@ema _resea rch
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2024 is EMA’s third annual ServiceOps research
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 6
“AI service automation: ITSM
and ITOps convergence”
ServiceOps will soon become the
prevailing IT operational model.It
is the logical product of business
sense and technology combined
because AIOps, automation, and
AI/ML enable, and can shape, a
converged model of IT service
delivery and support.
“ServiceOps 2024:
Automation and AI-powered
IT service and operations”
“Automation, AI, and the
rise of ServiceOps”
ServiceOps (by any name) – a
technology-enabled approach to
frictionless collaboration between
IT service and operations – is at
work across industries and
organizations of all sizes globally. It
is relatively early but gaining
momentum, as 78% of the
respondents identify this
collaboration as either an active
effort or a formal initiative.
2022 2023
2024
415+ IT leaders North America, EMEA, APAC
Organizations with 1,000-20,000+ employees
Cross-industries

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@ema _resea rch
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ServiceOps is early but mainstream – with or without the name ServiceOps
ServiceOps concepts are a natural fit with advances in cross-functional
collaboration and workflow automation, AI, automation, and platform
adoption. Often begins as a grassroots effort.
It accommodates specialization that is necessary without creating
barriers/silos – serves as a bridge
It plays into IT and CxO top priorities – employee productivity, cross-functional
efficiencies, quality of service, user experience, and cost
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Anything that makes information more accurate, accessible, and easy to
collaborate with benefits ITOps and IT service.

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EMA’s ServiceOps
2024 research:
Trends that favor the ServiceOps
movement

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@ema _resea rch
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ServiceOps addresses a fundamental disconnect…
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 9
Although oversimplified, how would you describe your IT’s
organizational principle when it comes to service support,
availability/performance, and incident management?
Generally speaking, how does your organization
define an IT service?
IT is judged/valued by
business service quality,
but defines and organizes
itself in technology terms.
ServiceOps bridges that gap.
There is a pronounced
movement toward
organizing in alignment with
business functions as well as
adopting a cross-functional
team approach. ServiceOps
facilitates that approach.
64% of organizations have reorganized to take
advantage of advances in AI and automation;
•25% haven’t reorganized but have greatly increased
cross-functional collaboration and workflows
•11% have just hired more headcount.
80% of CxOs say they’ve reorganized to take advantage
of AI and automation.

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@ema _resea rch
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ServiceOps maps to top ITOps improvements:
100% name increased use of automation, AI, and AIOps
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 10
What are the top ITOps improvements/goals in the
next 6 to 18 months? Select two.
2022
2023
2024“Automation, AI, and AIOps” jumps to 1
st

50% Reduce major incidents/MTTR
50% Reduce costs
44% Faster security response
42% Reduce major incidents/outages
40% Identify and respond to security
threats in less time
35% Reduce costs

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… and it maps to top ITSM improvements
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 11
These improvement/goals are unchanged from 2023
CxOs’ top ITSM goals – automated workflows and
self-service
100% of the respondents with ServiceOps initiatives
have an enterprise-wide approach to platform use
For the purposes of this survey, “platform” was
defined as “a group of technologies (usually
software, frequently vendor-supplied) that together
form a base on which other applications, processes,
and technologies can act or interact.”
When it comes to IT service (ITSM/service desk) what are the top
improvement/goals in the next 6 to 18 months?
Select two.

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ServiceOps
Questions for purposes of trending and
comparing year-over-year changes

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@ema _resea rch
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“ServiceOps” unaided name recognition is high – the name makes sense
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 13
What does the term ServiceOps mean to you?
75% have a ServiceOps initiative
44% report an active, formal effort to improve
collaboration between IT service and ITOps
31% have a ServiceOps team
14% have no formal effort but increased
collaboration
11% keep the two teams completely
separate
Unchanged
from 2023

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@ema _resea rch
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Impact of ServiceOps on organizations is almost universally very high
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 14
What impact has ServiceOps had on your organization?
96% say the impact
is positive
33% of CxOs say
“transformative”
Zero panelists chose a negative response any year
ServiceOps is still a young initiative, with 69% of the
organizations under two years
ServiceOps maturity has a high correlation with
quality of IT service delivered
50% of the mature ServiceOps group reported
IT service quality as “outstanding” compared to
29% 1-2 years and 18% new

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Top results of ServiceOps line up with top IT priorities
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 15
What are the results when service and operations are
effectively unified (ServiceOps)?
Faster time to find and fix (MTTR)
Productivity/less wasted time
Engagement and collaboration is:
•Most challenging phase of incident
management
•Biggest contributor to MTTR
•Second-most underserved phase
(after post incident wrap)
2023

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Top ways that IT service and ITOps collaborate using automation and AI/ML/analytics
IT service and ITOps unification
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 16
What is the ideal level of ServiceOps unification of
service and operations?
Which factors are most important to unify service
and operations?
1. ITAM 2. GRC Incident response Collaboration/
communication
Security Cross-functional
workflows
Note: Only three percentage points separate the top (ITAM) from the three-way tie between the four third-ranked
Tied for 3
rd

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2023 top two:
52% real-time context 48% workflows
Changes for ServiceOps effectiveness
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 17
Which changes are most important to ServiceOps effectiveness?

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@ema _resea rch
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Technologies
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 18
In 2023: workflow automation and enterprise
platform were also first and second… however,
AI/ML/analytics were in last place with 27%
Automation is a high priority mandated by the
C-suite for 63% and is departmental for 29%
AI is a strategic, enterprise-wide initiative for 67%
of the organizations evenly split between mature
and early. It is departmental for 31% and not
applicable for 2%.
Automation and AI are equally important for 48%
of organizations. When there is a difference,
automation has a slight edge
Which technologies are most important to unify
service and operations?

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@ema _resea rch
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Beyond IT service and ITOps – ServiceOps casts a wide net
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 19
Which areas or use cases benefit most from
coordination of service and operations?
Which teams other than service and operations
benefit from coordination of service and operations?

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ServiceOps benefits to the individual practitioners
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 20
As answered by ITOps panelistsAs answered by ITSM panelists
How does ServiceOps most benefit the service desk agent and IT operations engineer?

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44% of mature ServiceOps (2+ years) expand because of success, 30% early
Necessity and commonsense = practicality; ServiceOps makes sense to those practicing it
Drivers of ServiceOps expansion
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 21
Which statement best describes the reason
for service and operations to increase collaboration in your organization?
ServiceOps
makes
sense

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AI and GenAI

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@ema _resea rch
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AI wish list. Predictive/proactive reality keeps humans in the loop.
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 23
If AI could do one thing really well, what would have the biggest positive impact?
How is predictive AI insight used for proactive action in your organization?

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@ema _resea rch
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GenAI now and near-term
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 24
There’s been a lot of excitement and talk about generative AI
(GenAI) and ChatGPT.
Where does it stand in your IT organization?
What is a realistic timeframe for GenAI to become
mainstream in production for incident response in your
organization?
Note that “production” could be anything from ad hoc improvements to vendor-supplied full suite.
A topic worth pursuing in future research.

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Regulation/compliance and security are likely GenAI obstacles to adoption
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 25
What is the main reason your organization might delay implementing GenAI or ChatGPT?

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Heavy reliance on vendors in GenAI implementation
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 26
Which approach to GenAI is your organization likely to take?

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High expectations for GenAI across use cases
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 27
If GenAI can accurately automate or transform a function,
which capabilities would have the most value to your organization?

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@ema _resea rch
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GenAI ServiceOps use cases are numerous and tightly grouped
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 28
Which areas are the most likely candidates for GenAI adoption in your organization?

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@ema _resea rch
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A 50% reduction in MTTR (or greater) is a credible GenAI projection
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 29
58% say 50% or more reduction in MTTR
12% say a 75% or more reduction
Only a misguided 3% say marginal
What would be the result if it only took seconds to do all of the following: automatically generate an accurate
alert/incident summarization, identify possible/likely root cause, and identify/engage the correct responders/teams?

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@ema _resea rch
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82% foresee GenAI’s use in KB articles resulting in a deflection rate of 50% +
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 30
If knowledgebase articles could be automatically and accurately generated/updated
and easily searched with normal, everyday language, what percentage of incidents, tickets, and cases might be deflected?

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@ema _resea rch
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GenAI in ServiceOps over next 6-18 months – a mix of bullish and cautious
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 31
What role do you see AI and GenAI having in ServiceOps (collaboration between IT service and
operations) in your organization in the next 6-18 months?

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@ema _resea rch
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Policies, people, and processes challenge GenAI
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 32
Last question: What do you think will be the biggest challenge to GenAI adoption in
your organization in the next 6-18 months?

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Closing thoughts…
ServiceOps can serve as a conceptual
framework to harness and direct enterprise
initiatives and investments that reach far past
the IT service/IT operations starting point
The concept gives direction and structure to
the current drives toward cross-functional
workflows and automation
The findings in this annual research can be
used to give shape and substance to
ServiceOps initiatives, validating them as
essential elements of modern business and
digital transformation
ServiceOps elevates casual, collegial
cooperation to business-impacting
collaboration that is intentional, with results
that are quantifiable

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Check out the sponsor sites to access the full report!
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 34