AI and Automation Fall Short of Sysadmin Expectations

AI and automation have not been as transformative for IT and security workflows as system administrators thought they would be when asked two years ago, according to Action1.

The endpoint management specialist polled over 1000 sysadmins globally to compile its lates report, Action1 2026 Survey Report: AI Impact on Sysadmins.

Published on July 30, it provides insight into how sysadmins thought AI would transform their work when asked in 2024, versus the reality today.

By 2026, adoption is much lower than they predicted, across nearly every category.

Read more on AI adoption: SANS Warns of AI Governance Gap as Use by Security Teams Surges.

According to the report, the biggest gaps between 2024 predictions and 2026 reality are in the following areas:

• Patch management optimization: 67% predicted full automation by 2026, but only 16% report implementation today
• Server CPU and memory monitoring: 70% versus 20%
• Vulnerability prioritization: 66% versus 17%
• Incident detection and remediation: 67% versus 19%
• Compliance analysis: 62% versus 28%
• Log analysis: 83% versus 50%

Adoption Is Growing in Some Areas

Despite the findings, Gene Moody, field CTO at Action1, argued that AI adoption has not stalled, but rather it is being implemented in a more selective manner as sysadmins get hands on with the tech to understand its limitations.

“Sysadmins are comfortable using AI to analyze information, reduce noise and recommend actions, but they understand that an incorrect decision affecting production systems, vulnerabilities or access controls can have serious consequences,” he said.

“The emerging model is supervised AI, with experienced administrators retaining authority over high-impact decisions.” 

This is borne out by other findings in the report.

Nearly half (47%) of sysadmins today claim to use AI for troubleshooting, but mainly in terms of hypotheses and recommendations rather than autonomous resolution. The predicted figure in 2024 was 52%.

Additionally, Action1 reported that the share of organizations requiring AI use more than doubled from 15% in 2023 to 34% in 2026. Over half (58%) of sysadmins now claim to understand how to integrate AI into workflows, up from a quarter (24%) in 2023, although concerns persist.

These are led by worries over privacy and accuracy (74%), loss of control (58%) and cost (55%) and job replacement (24%).