PagerDuty Study Finds 16% Increase in Enterprise Incidents Amid Race to AI Adoption

PagerDuty, Inc. (NYSE:PD), a global leader in digital operations management, today released its 2024 State of Digital Operations study, examining the concerns and priorities of enterprise and upper mid-market decision makers for the year ahead. Drawing insights from a survey of 350 business and technical leaders across numerous industries, the study revealed critical initiatives, budgets strategies and risks businesses face driving operational transformation at scale.

With mandates to achieve top line growth while improving efficiency in an uncertain macroeconomic landscape, the majority of leaders expect to expand IT Operations budgets with a focus on mitigating risk, increasing revenue and improving resilience. Cloud and security infrastructure remain top priorities given their foundational role in businesses’ digital health.

Digital Operations Survey Results

• 13% year-over-year increase in customer-facing incidents, reflecting rising levels of complexity and risk as businesses drive operational transformation at scale.
  • Enterprise companies saw sharper increases (16%) on a higher base of incidents versus mid-market companies (8%).
• 77% of leaders plan to expand investment in cloud services and 76% intend to increase spend on cloud storage.
• 45% of respondents ranked security and reducing risk among their top three business imperatives, with 29% naming this the number one priority and 73% expecting to increase security budgets.
• More than half of respondents say their 2024 IT Operations budgets will be higher than they were last year, while just 16% expect budgets to decrease.

Despite a significant disconnect between business and technical leaders’ outlook on adoption of innovation––81% of technical decision makers report teams are using automation more effectively than they were 12 months ago versus 47% of business decision makers––they remain aligned on pushing forward to operationalize investments in artificial intelligence in 2024.

Across participants, 71% are growing budgets for AI and machine learning and 76% are pursuing automation of IT or business operations workflows. This accelerated rate of AI adoption has potential to both increase efficiency and add strain to already stretched IT infrastructure, underscoring the importance of foundational safeguards to manage unplanned incidents.

Leaders also indicated plans to operationalize investments in artificial intelligence in 2024, with 71% looking to grow budgets for AI and machine learning and 76% pursuing automation of IT or business operations workflows. The accelerated rate of generative AI adoption has potential to add strain to already stretched IT infrastructure, underscoring the importance of safeguards to manage unplanned incidents.