Appetite for agentic IT outruns the trust to let it make decisions
Riverbed's survey found 90% of IT leaders want agentic AI running autonomous operations within two years. But 77% will not let agents make operational decisions without a human, and just one in five run automated operations now.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- Three-quarters of respondents believe agentic AI will become a core part of their future IT strategies.
- Only four in ten say their IT environment is ready today to support agentic AI.
- Seventy-six percent of projects have moved past proof of concept, only five points more than a year ago, while just 9% are deployed across the enterprise.
- Respondents said autonomous operations need high-quality data, unified observability and consolidated tools, but 87% have yet to integrate their systems.
- Security and compliance was the top hurdle to autonomy at 55%, ahead of operational disruption at 45% and a lack of trust in AI decisions at 39%.
Why it matters
- constraint Reserving every operational decision for a human caps what autonomous can mean in the near term; the agents assist and people still sign off.
- decision The survey ties working autonomy to data quality, observability and integrated tools. For a buyer, that puts the first money into the groundwork before the agents.
- contradiction The specialists who deploy and operate the agents are more cautious than the leaders who buy them. A board reading only the leadership numbers overstates its readiness.
- precedent More than nine in ten expect AI observability and governance to become increasingly critical to manage. The next phase of spending favours oversight over more automation.
The distance between that appetite and today's deployment runs to about 70 percentage points [23]. Respondents are happy with what they have spent so far. In Riverbed's survey, 90% of respondents said AI investment to date has exceeded expectations, and 82% already use AI for innovation and to create new "sources of advantage" [13][14].
The constraints are in the data and tooling. Only 17% of respondents said they have unified visibility across their IT environment, and 19% said they lack the data that autonomous operations would need [3][4]. "The message is clear: organizations have strong ambitions for autonomous IT, but fragmented data, incomplete visibility, and disconnected tools are holding them back," the report said [5].
Within the companies, the optimism splits by role. The report noted that "enthusiasm is not evenly shared" [18]. Confidence in an employer's AI governance and oversight sits at 42% overall but drops to 36% among the technical specialists who deploy and run the systems, a six-point gap [15][24]. Just 17% of those specialists expect fully autonomous agents to be a large part of their employer's operating model in the next few years [16]. "Business and IT leaders are more optimistic about agentic AI's potential, while the technical specialists responsible for deploying, governing, and operating it are more attuned to the practical hurdles ahead," Riverbed said [17].
The research comes from Riverbed, where Jim Gargan is chief marketing officer [21]. "The journey to autonomous IT is well underway," Gargan said, adding that the research "shows significant gaps between ambition and readiness" [19]. He added: "The next phase of AI is not simply more automation, but AI that enterprises can understand, trust and govern" [20].
What to watch
- Whether the one-in-five share running automated IT operations rises in Riverbed's next annual survey.
- Whether security and compliance worries ease enough for organizations to let agents act without human sign-off.
- Whether the leader-versus-specialist confidence gap narrows as more projects move past proof of concept.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption20
- Hype gap+45
- Incentives55
- Confidence45
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
To build autonomous IT operations, respondents said they need high-quality data, unified observability, and consolidated tools.
- [2]
87% said they have yet to integrate tools and systems.
- [3]
17% of respondents believe they have unified visibility.
- [4]
19% of overall respondents said they lack the data required for AI-powered IT operations.
- [5]
The message is clear: organizations have strong ambitions for autonomous IT, but fragmented data, incomplete visibility, and disconnected tools are holding them back.
- [6]
90% of surveyed IT managers and tech leaders want to use agentic AI to power autonomous IT operations in the next two years.
- [7]
77% of respondents said their organization did not want to allow AI to make operational decisions without human approval.
- [8]
Just one in five organizations run automated IT operations right now.
- [9]
Three-quarters of respondents believe agentic AI will be a core part of future IT strategies.
- [10]
Only four in ten have an IT environment ready to support agentic AI.
- [11]
76% of projects have progressed beyond proof of concept, only 5% more than last year, and just 9% are deployed across the enterprise.
- [12]
Respondents named security and compliance (55%), operational disruption (45%) and a lack of trust in AI decisions (39%) as the biggest hurdles to autonomous IT.
- [13]
90% said AI investment to date has exceeded expectations.
- [14]
82% of those polled are using AI at their companies for innovation and to create new "sources of advantage".
- [15]
42% of those polled are confident in their employers' governance and oversight of AI; for technical specialists that falls to 36%.
- [16]
Just 17% of technical specialists see fully autonomous agents making up a large part of their employers' operating model in the next few years.
- [17]
Business and IT leaders are more optimistic about agentic AI's potential, while the technical specialists responsible for deploying, governing, and operating it are more attuned to the practical hurdles ahead.
- [18]
enthusiasm is not evenly shared
- [19]
The journey to autonomous IT is well underway. Organizations increasingly see AI as the path to more resilient, efficient and proactive IT, but our research shows significant gaps between ambition and readiness.
- [20]
The next phase of AI is not simply more automation, but AI that enterprises can understand, trust and govern.
- [21]
The research comes from Riverbed, and Jim Gargan is its chief marketing officer.
- [22]
More than nine in ten said AI observability and governance was set to become an increasingly critical area for IT to manage.
- [23]
There is roughly a 70-percentage-point gap between the 90% who want autonomous operations within two years and the 20% that run automated IT operations now.
- [24]
Confidence in AI governance is 6 percentage points lower among technical specialists (36%) than overall (42%).
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Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- itpro.comEnterprises aren't quite sold on autonomous IT operations
1 article · October 6, 2026
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Topics
- Agentic AI and tool useFollow
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- ObservabilityFollow