The State of AI in ITSM (Mid-2025)

In Q2 2025, HCLSoftware and ITSM.tools ran an IT service management (ITSM) and artificial intelligence (AI)-focused survey; this article presents some of the results from the resulting report called The State of AI in ITSM 2025. The full report can be downloaded here.

The State of AI in ITSM 2025

• The top three ITSM challenges (to set some context for AI adoption) in early 2025 were reported as:
  • Automating repetitive tasks to improve efficiency (45%)
  • Enhancing user experience (45%)
  • Aligning ITSM with business objectives (34%).
• In terms of AI use, 10% of survey respondent organizations had “Extensive AI capabilities in production,” and 23% had “Limited AI capabilities in production.” Another 24% were experimenting or testing the AI capabilities in their corporate ITSM tool.
• Only 20% of survey respondents said they didn’t use free AI tools at work. Of the 72% of respondents using free AI tools, over three-fifths were using them in addition to the available corporate AI capabilities. The smallest organizations (1-100 and 101-500 employees) were most likely to use free AI tools.
• The top three expected benefits of AI adoption, a key insight from the State of AI in ITSM 2025 report, were:
  • Improving the end-user experience (65%)Optimizing ITSM operations (54%)Increasing employee productivity (50%).
• The top three achieved benefits were:
  • Increasing employee productivity (32%)
  • Better decision-making (20%)
  • Improving the end-user experience” (20%)
• 26% of survey respondents felt that AI had improved their organization’s ITSM efficiency, versus 9% that didn’t. The level of “It’s too early to tell” responses was high at 44%.
• North American headquartered organizations had seen three times the level of AI success in ITSM efficiency terms compared to those headquartered in Europe.
• 61% of survey respondents felt that corporate AI capabilities help them with their work, versus only 3% who don’t. When this split is adjusted to include only the affirmative and negative responses, this is 95% and 5%, respectively. The use of free AI tools showed similar levels of success.
• The main barriers to AI adoption and success were reported as:
  • Additional costs/ROI justification (45%)
  • Data security and privacy (43%)
  • Lack of skilled people internally (39%).
• The three most adopted AI capabilities were reported in the State of AI in ITSM 2025 report as:
  • Virtual agents/chatbots for employees
  • Virtual assistants for IT staff
  • Intelligent workflow automation.
• The level of Agentic AI adoption was similar across all organizational sizes and all ITSM tool payment models. However, the organizations with AI as a no-cost ITSM tool addition were circa five times more likely to have adopted Agentic AI capabilities already.
• The top or primary AI use cases in ITSM were:
  • Analytics and reporting (20%)
  • Virtual agents for end-users” (18%)
  • Incident management” (17%).
• 84% of State of AI in ITSM survey respondents had a “positive” view of the power of AI in ITSM, while 13% selected more “negative” options. Respondents from North American headquartered organizations were the only ones who explicitly stated that AI would lead to job losses.
• Trust in AI had increased for 59% of respondents, while it had decreased for just 9%. 20% of respondents hadn’t changed their opinions of AI, with this split between “I still trust AI” and “I still don’t trust AI” in a ratio of 3:2. Trust in AI was higher where paid-for AI capabilities (in ITSM tools) were used, with the level of trust in AI dropping at three times the rate in the no-cost pricing model. Respondents in European headquartered organizations distrusted AI the most.

For more survey statistics and greater detail, the full The State of AI in ITSM 2025 report can be downloaded from here. There’s also an accompanying webinar on BrightTALK: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/17964/651613.

A future ITSM.tools article will also share many of the survey correlations that didn’t make it into the report.

This article is now available: https://itsm.tools/ai-in-itsm-survey-correlations/

Further Reading

AI in ITSM – 4 Key Points