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Manufacturing Leaders Agree: AI Automation Is Important to Improve IT Efficiency and Deliver Improved Digital Experience

While there is high enthusiasm for AI — with 92% of those surveyed in the manufacturing industry confirming AI is a top C-Suite priority and 92% agree it provides a competitive advantage — only 32% of manufacturers are fully prepared to implement AI projects now, 5% lower than the overall industry average, according to Manufacturing sector results of the Riverbed Global AI & Digital Experience Survey.

Image
riverbed

Source: Kaizen

They recognize there are a number of challenges ranging from data quality to scalability which are impacting their ability to realize the full potential of AI technology. As AI continues to advance, manufacturers can achieve significant benefits including increased efficiency and productivity, improvements in product quality, optimizing inventory levels and production processes, and applying proactive data-driven decision making, all to collectively enhance and deliver a superior customer experience.

The next three years are anticipated to be a period of rapid expansion as enterprises seek practical AI approaches and solutions. By 2027, 83% of manufacturing leaders expect their organization to be fully prepared to implement their AI strategy and projects. During the same time period, AI is expected to mature and become a growth driver. Whereas today, 58% of leaders across manufacturing say the primary reason for using AI is to drive operational efficiencies over growth (42%), those numbers flip in 2027, with 65% of organizations saying AI will primarily be a growth driver versus driving efficiencies (35%). This sizable shift is one of the largest across all the industry sectors participating in the study.

Manufacturing leaders surveyed also said they expect to see many benefits through the use of AIOps, as 89% of manufacturers agree that AI automation is important to improve IT efficiency and deliver a superior digital experience for end users. Manufacturing leaders were asked to rank how they expect to use AI in their IT operations to improve Digital Employee Experience (DEX) within the next three years and the results revealed:

  • Workflow automation (80%)
  • Automated remediation (69%)
  • 24/7 support availability such as chatbots (63%)
  • Data-driven insights (60%)
  • Anomaly detection (59%)

While there is widespread enthusiasm for AI, the research identified three major gaps that organizations must overcome to realize the desired benefits and achieve business success. As with other industries, manufacturers must overcome the reality gap, the readiness gap, and the data gap in order to maximize the value of their AI investments.

Reality Gap: Manufacturers are confident about their AI adoption for IT services and digital experience, with 77% claiming to be ahead of their peers, including 25% who say they are significantly ahead. Only 7% say they are behind. This gap between perception and reality indicates many leaders are overconfident about where their IT function is on their AI journey in relation to their industry peers.

Readiness Gap: As stated earlier, there's a readiness gap as only 32% of manufacturing leaders say their organization is fully prepared to implement AI projects today. This group is behind all other sectors (except the public sector) in terms of AI preparation. Additionally, 67% say with AI still maturing, it's challenging to implement AI that works and scales.

Data Gap: Nearly all leaders in the manufacturing sector (87%) acknowledge that great data is critical for great AI. However, 69% are concerned about the effectiveness of their organization's data for AI usage, and only 42% rated their data as excellent for completeness and accuracy. It's notable too that 42% say their data quality is a barrier to further AI investment.

There are also growing concerns in the sector about data confidentiality and security risks, with 92% concerned that AI will access their organization's proprietary data in the public domain due to use of AI. The manufacturing industry is especially vulnerable to data breaches due to its widespread reliance on legacy systems, so cybersecurity is a concern for this sector.

Manufacturing organizations are implementing strategies to overcome AI challenges and achieve tangible results. To address AI preparedness, 57% of manufacturers have formed dedicated AI teams, and 42% observability and/or user experience teams.

Manufacturers are exploring other initiatives to drive successful AI integration. When it comes to data, the vast majority of manufacturing leaders (84%) say using real data, rather than synthetic data, is crucial in AI efforts to improve the digital experience.

Additionally, 83% of respondents agree that observability across all elements of IT is important in an AIOps strategy, and at least 81% say observability to overcome network blind spots—including public cloud, remote work environments, Zero Trust architectures, and enterprise-owned mobile devices—is either extremely or moderately important.

Methodology: The Riverbed Global AI & Digital Experience Survey polled 1,200 IT, business, and public sector decision-makers across seven countries, all with over $250 million in annual revenue (over $500 million in the US, UK, and France). Industries included manufacturing, financial services, retail, government/public sector, healthcare providers, energy and utilities, and transport and airlines. A total of 200 decision makers were surveyed in the Manufacturing industry. The survey was conducted by Coleman Parkes Research in June 2024.

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Manufacturing Leaders Agree: AI Automation Is Important to Improve IT Efficiency and Deliver Improved Digital Experience

While there is high enthusiasm for AI — with 92% of those surveyed in the manufacturing industry confirming AI is a top C-Suite priority and 92% agree it provides a competitive advantage — only 32% of manufacturers are fully prepared to implement AI projects now, 5% lower than the overall industry average, according to Manufacturing sector results of the Riverbed Global AI & Digital Experience Survey.

Image
riverbed

Source: Kaizen

They recognize there are a number of challenges ranging from data quality to scalability which are impacting their ability to realize the full potential of AI technology. As AI continues to advance, manufacturers can achieve significant benefits including increased efficiency and productivity, improvements in product quality, optimizing inventory levels and production processes, and applying proactive data-driven decision making, all to collectively enhance and deliver a superior customer experience.

The next three years are anticipated to be a period of rapid expansion as enterprises seek practical AI approaches and solutions. By 2027, 83% of manufacturing leaders expect their organization to be fully prepared to implement their AI strategy and projects. During the same time period, AI is expected to mature and become a growth driver. Whereas today, 58% of leaders across manufacturing say the primary reason for using AI is to drive operational efficiencies over growth (42%), those numbers flip in 2027, with 65% of organizations saying AI will primarily be a growth driver versus driving efficiencies (35%). This sizable shift is one of the largest across all the industry sectors participating in the study.

Manufacturing leaders surveyed also said they expect to see many benefits through the use of AIOps, as 89% of manufacturers agree that AI automation is important to improve IT efficiency and deliver a superior digital experience for end users. Manufacturing leaders were asked to rank how they expect to use AI in their IT operations to improve Digital Employee Experience (DEX) within the next three years and the results revealed:

  • Workflow automation (80%)
  • Automated remediation (69%)
  • 24/7 support availability such as chatbots (63%)
  • Data-driven insights (60%)
  • Anomaly detection (59%)

While there is widespread enthusiasm for AI, the research identified three major gaps that organizations must overcome to realize the desired benefits and achieve business success. As with other industries, manufacturers must overcome the reality gap, the readiness gap, and the data gap in order to maximize the value of their AI investments.

Reality Gap: Manufacturers are confident about their AI adoption for IT services and digital experience, with 77% claiming to be ahead of their peers, including 25% who say they are significantly ahead. Only 7% say they are behind. This gap between perception and reality indicates many leaders are overconfident about where their IT function is on their AI journey in relation to their industry peers.

Readiness Gap: As stated earlier, there's a readiness gap as only 32% of manufacturing leaders say their organization is fully prepared to implement AI projects today. This group is behind all other sectors (except the public sector) in terms of AI preparation. Additionally, 67% say with AI still maturing, it's challenging to implement AI that works and scales.

Data Gap: Nearly all leaders in the manufacturing sector (87%) acknowledge that great data is critical for great AI. However, 69% are concerned about the effectiveness of their organization's data for AI usage, and only 42% rated their data as excellent for completeness and accuracy. It's notable too that 42% say their data quality is a barrier to further AI investment.

There are also growing concerns in the sector about data confidentiality and security risks, with 92% concerned that AI will access their organization's proprietary data in the public domain due to use of AI. The manufacturing industry is especially vulnerable to data breaches due to its widespread reliance on legacy systems, so cybersecurity is a concern for this sector.

Manufacturing organizations are implementing strategies to overcome AI challenges and achieve tangible results. To address AI preparedness, 57% of manufacturers have formed dedicated AI teams, and 42% observability and/or user experience teams.

Manufacturers are exploring other initiatives to drive successful AI integration. When it comes to data, the vast majority of manufacturing leaders (84%) say using real data, rather than synthetic data, is crucial in AI efforts to improve the digital experience.

Additionally, 83% of respondents agree that observability across all elements of IT is important in an AIOps strategy, and at least 81% say observability to overcome network blind spots—including public cloud, remote work environments, Zero Trust architectures, and enterprise-owned mobile devices—is either extremely or moderately important.

Methodology: The Riverbed Global AI & Digital Experience Survey polled 1,200 IT, business, and public sector decision-makers across seven countries, all with over $250 million in annual revenue (over $500 million in the US, UK, and France). Industries included manufacturing, financial services, retail, government/public sector, healthcare providers, energy and utilities, and transport and airlines. A total of 200 decision makers were surveyed in the Manufacturing industry. The survey was conducted by Coleman Parkes Research in June 2024.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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