Auvik has published its 2026 IT Trends Report, drawing on insights from internal IT and MSP professionals about the key trends and challenges shaping their work. Titled “Beyond the Hype: The Real State of IT in 2026,” the report highlights a widening gap between how organizations perceive their operational maturity and the realities of day-to-day operations, even as excitement around AI grows and budgets increase.
AI Hype Outpaces AI Readiness
AI continues to dominate conversations about the future of IT. Despite enthusiasm about its potential, AI is rarely core to IT operations today, and workers on the front line with customers are eager for greater adoption. Key findings in the 2026 IT Trends Report include:
- Almost 70% of respondents say they are “optimistic” or “very optimistic” about AI’s near term impact on IT.
- Yet only 5% say AI is currently core to their IT operations today.
- 40% 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: 76% of IT leaders believe their organization has an AI policy in place, but just 42% of front line workers agree.
- 49% 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,” said Doug Murray, CEO, 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.”
Budgets Are Increasing, But Time Remains the Bottleneck
IT budgets are growing, but the increased funding has not translated to execution capacity. Nearly half of internal IT respondents (49%) say their budget grew in the past year, including 28% reporting increases of 10% or more. Despite this, increased budgets have not unlocked the ability to move faster, with internal IT teams only being half as likely to be making new investments compared to their MSP peers.
When asked why initiatives stall, corporate IT respondents point to time and staffing: 48% cite lack of time, 33% cite insufficient IT staff, and 30% 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.
Shadow IT Remains a Top Unaddressed Risk
Unauthorized SaaS applications continue to multiply across IT environments, and many organizations still lack the visibility needed to manage them. Shadow IT is now viewed as the single most underestimated risk by business leadership, with 20% of MSP respondents rating it as the highest concern.
61% of respondents say they discover unauthorized SaaS applications at least monthly, with 23% reporting weekly discoveries, and 8% say they have no idea how many SaaS applications are in use across their organization at all. For internal IT teams, this lack of visibility is a day-to-day operational constraint, and for MSPs managing complex, multi-client environments, the stakes are even higher.
Nearly half (44%) of all respondents say that a lack of real-time visibility into their environment impedes their ability to work effectively, reinforcing that Shadow IT has evolved beyond just a compliance issue and is now a direct constraint on day-to-day operations.
Other key findings from the 2026 IT Trends Report include:
- Hybrid work is disappearing. 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% in 2025 to 51% in 2026, while traditional 50/50 hybrid arrangements saw the steepest decline of any work model category, dropping from 35% to 25%. Despite the shift, distributed support remains a core IT responsibility regardless of what a work policy says on paper.
- Tool sprawl is adding to operational complexity. More than a third of MSPs (36%) and over a quarter of internal IT teams (26%) report using ten or more tools to manage their environments, driving growing interest in tool consolidation as organizations look for ways to reduce overhead and reclaim limited staff time.
- Operational maturity is more perception than practice. Many organizations consider themselves mature, yet foundational challenges like visibility gaps, reactive workflows, and staffing constraints continue to surface as day-to-day realities. When budgets grow but new initiatives don’t follow, it signals a maturity ceiling driven by time and capacity rather than funding.
Download Auvik’s 2026 IT Trends Report for the full breakdown of research findings and analysis here.
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