Let’s consider what the ITSM trends for 2025 could be. Each year, ITSM.tools seeks out the key IT service management (ITSM) trends for the year ahead. We did it again at the end of 2024, asking ITSM.tools readers to share the key ITSM topics they’d like as content-related help in 2025. While ITSM content-focused, we still like to think the quick poll results reflect “the hottest ITSM trends for 2025.”
This article shares the results of the 2025 content poll based on 176 responses. There are also insights into how ITSM trends have changed over time, some trend-related opinions, and links to existing trend-related ITSM.tools content that might still help.
How the topics poll works
We made an anonymous ITSM trends Google form poll available in December 2024. The poll respondents could choose their five most important ITSM topics or trends for 2025 (in the context of needing help). The Other option was free-form to catch other topics.
Now, we’re sharing the ITSM trends for 2025 poll results. Still, we’re not going to tell you what to focus your IT organization’s attention on in 2025; it’s just an insight into what the ITSM community thinks is important. Of course, this poll data could be used to sense-check your 2025 ITSM improvement plans.
The 2025 ITSM trends poll results at a glance
Here’s a quick snapshot of the 2025 ITSM trends poll (in case this is all you need):
The five hottest ITSM trends for 2025 versus those for 2024
The top five ITSM trends for 2025 are:
- Governance (including AI governance) (37%)
- Generative AI (GenAI) (35%)
- ITIL/ITSM “advanced” capabilities (31%)
- Value demonstration (28%)
- People (including attitude, behavior, and culture (ABC)) (27%)
Versus the top ITSM trends for 2024:
- Artificial intelligence/machine learning (44%)
- Value demonstration (32%)
- Automation (28%)
- Enterprise service management (28%)
- Service integration and management (27%)
The main changes in ITSM trends for 2025
A comparison of the ITSM trends for 2025 and the 2024 ITSM trends lists shows that:
- Governance is a new entry at #1 (with a rocket, as DJs might say). This was the first year governance was included as an option. It’s likely that the phrase “AI governance” played a big part in its lofty position.
- The ITSM world has gone “all-in” on generative AI (GenAI), with this another new option. Although the “traditional AI” option was still in ninth place at 21%.
- ITIL/ITSM “advanced” capabilities jumped to third place from last year’s joint sixth place and 24%. What these are is unknown.
- Value demonstration dropped from second to fourth place. It’s still a “tough nut” that organizations struggle to crack.
- People rose from last year’s joint eighth place and 23%. But I still think we’re “almost genetically” unable to manage people better in IT. But I bet this isn’t just an IT issue.
- Enterprise service management is still nudging the top five in joint sixth place (26%), along with employee experience management.
- Automation dropped from 28% to 16% and seventeenth place, while SIAM landed in eleventh place in 2025 (19%).
This diagram shows a wider year-on-year change timeframe for ITSM trends.
ITSM trends 2020-2025
While the 2025 results in isolation felt like a big change from previous years, this diagram shows that 2025 is still similar to 2024 and 2023 in terms of its overall makeup.
Pre-2025 ITSM trends content
While the ITSM trends for 2025 poll aimed to identify the ITSM content readers need for 2025, the results also allow us to resurface some existing ITSM content (from 2023 and 2024) that might help:
1 – Governance (including AI governance)
Nothing has been written about governance in the last two years. In fact, the last piece of governance content is from 2021: The 5 Simple Rules of Effective IT Governance.
2 – GenAI
- The State of AI in ITSM 2025
- GenAI IT Service Management Use Case Examples
- The Biggest Challenges to Generative AI Adoption Success
- LLMs: 5 Uses of Large Language Models in ITSM Tools
- AI Adoption in ESM – Some Key Points
- Artificial Intelligence Use – It’s Now an ITSM Necessity
- AI Adoption in ITSM – Some Key Points
- Generative AI for Knowledge Management in IT
3 – ITIL/ITSM “advanced” capabilities
There’s a lot of content depending on your definition of ITIL/ITSM “advanced” capabilities. Here are a few examples:
- CMDB vs. Asset Management – What’s the Difference?
- Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs) for IT Services
- Security Patch Management: Trends and Predictions
- Application Security: What ITSM Pros Need to Know
- IT Security and ITSM: Effective Collaboration in the Face of Attacks
- What ITSM Pros Need to Know About Network Security
- How ITIL Supplier Management Delivers Better Services
However, there’s so much more we could add.
4 – Value demonstration
- IT Service Desk Benchmarks – Where’s the Value?
- Digital Services: Value Co-Creation in Organizations with ITIL 4™
- The Importance of IT Support to Business Perceptions of IT’s Value
- Value and ITSM – The Boardroom View
- The Value of Understanding Value Comes from Action
5 – People
Nothing new has directly focused on people in the last two years. However, much of what the now-retired Paul Wilkinson has written for ITSM.tools is still relevant and can be found on the site (plus we have our well-being content that was lowly placed in the ITSM Trends for 2025):
- ITSM Well-being Data – A Deeper Dive
- ITSM Well-being in 2024
- Employee Well-being Permeates All We Do in Technology
- Confessions of a CIO – Well-being in IT
- (Nearly) Everything You Need to Know About Being an ITSM Pro
- Even ChatGPT Knows What’s Wrong with ITSM!
- The Shiny New Thing That Really Helps
ITSM content for the year ahead
As usual, ITSM.tools will take a readers-first approach to ITSM content creation that’s not limited to these ITSM trends. So, please contact us about any other ITSM topics where help is needed for 2025. Plus, please submit a new article idea if you think you can help ITSM.tools readers.
Finally, thank you for reading our articles in 2024. We hope to make our 2025 ITSM content – whether based on the ITSM trends for 2025 or not – just as helpful.
Sophie Danby
Sophie is a freelance ITSM marketing consultant, helping ITSM solution vendors to develop and implement effective marketing strategies.
She covers both traditional areas of marketing (such as advertising, trade shows, and events) and digital marketing (such as video, social media, and email marketing). She is also a trained editor.