While AI continues to dominate discussions around the future of IT it’s still not a major part of most operations. A new IT trends report from Auvik looks at the gap between the ambition of IT departments and actual AI adoption.
Almost 70 percent of respondents say they are ‘optimistic’ or ‘very optimistic’ about AI’s near term impact on IT. Yet only five percent say AI is currently core to their IT operations today.
Policy support is lagging too, 40 percent of respondents report their company either has no AI policy or is still developing one. The perception of that AI policy varies widely between company leadership and employees too. 76 percent of IT leaders believe their organization has an AI policy in place, but just 42 percent of front line workers agree.
Also 49 percent of respondents report limited time available for AI adoption. Core to the adoption challenges that many organizations face is a lack of alignment on AI policy and whether or not it is being enforced.
“AI is everywhere in IT conversations right now, but our data shows that enthusiasm is running well ahead of readiness,” says Doug Murray, CEO of Auvik. “When three-quarters of IT leaders believe they have an AI policy but fewer than half of help desk staff say the same, that’s an implementation problem versus a policy problem. Until governance is understood at every level of the organization, AI risks becoming just another source of Shadow IT rather than a solution to it.”
When asked why initiatives stall, corporate IT respondents point to time and staffing issues. 48 percent cite lack of time, 33 percent cite insufficient IT staff, and 30 percent cite budget as a remaining constraint. This reflects mounting pressure to justify spend in environments where inefficiencies aren’t always visible and capacity remains constrained.
The report’s findings show that shadow IT is now viewed as the single most underestimated risk by business leadership, with 20 percent of MSP respondents rating it as the highest concern. 61 percent of respondents say they discover unauthorized SaaS applications at least monthly, with 23 percent reporting weekly discoveries, and eight percent saying they have no idea how many SaaS applications are in use across their organization at all.
The report also notes that hybrid work is declining, businesses are increasingly shifting to a ‘remote first’ or an ‘in-office first’ model, leaving a hollowing out of the hybrid model. The share of organizations identifying as mostly in-office surged from 37 percent in 2025 to 51 percent in 2026, while traditional 50/50 hybrid arrangements saw the steepest decline of any work model category, dropping from 35 percent to 25 percent.
You can get the full 2026 IT Trends Report from the Auvik site.
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