Microsoft IoT Signals: A Global Overview of the IoT Landscape

IoT adoption is growing rapidly, and respondents believe 30% of their company’s revenue two years from now will be due to IoT, according to the new IoT Signals report from Microsoft Corp.

Yet, Microsoft also notes that the industry faces a significant IoT skills gap, as well as complexity and security challenges that may compromise business benefits to IoT if not addressed.


“IoT is transforming businesses in every industry and is powering breakthrough innovations,” said Sam George, Head of Azure IoT. “Our research shows that unlocking IoT’s full potential requires the industry to address key challenges like the skills shortage, security concerns and solution complexity. Microsoft is leading the way on simplifying and securing IoT so that every business on the planet can benefit.”

IoT Signals key findings:

■ 85% of respondents are in IoT adoption, and three-fourths of these have IoT projects in planning.

■ Among IoT adopters, 88% believe IoT is critical to business success.

■ IoT adopters believe they will see a 30% ROI, inclusive of cost savings and efficiencies, two years from now.

■ Nearly all IoT adopters — 97% — have security concerns when implementing IoT, but this is not hindering adoption.

■ 38% of IoT adopters cite complexity and technical challenges to using IoT as a barrier to furthering their IoT adoption.

■ Lack of talent and training present challenges for half of IoT adopters, and 47% say there are not enough available skilled workers.

■ Respondents believe critical technology drivers for IoT success in the next two years are AI, edge computing and 5G.

■ Nearly one-third of projects (30%) fail in the proof-of-concept stage, often because implementation is expensive or bottom-line benefits are unclear.

The proliferation of IoT devices is enabling companies to bring cloud intelligence to the edge, to create solutions that are adaptive and responsive to their environments.

“According to IDC’s Worldwide Global DataSphere IoT Devices and Data Forecast, IDC expects there to be 41.6 billion connected IoT devices by 2025 — growing at a rate of 8.9% over the forecast period,” said Carrie MacGillivray, Group VP, IoT, 5G and Mobility at IDC. “As the market continues to mature, IoT increasingly becomes the fabric enabling the exchange of information from ‘things’ to people and processes. Data becomes the common denominator — as it is captured, processed, and used from the nearest and farthest edges of the network to create value for industries, governments, and individuals’ lives.”

In partnership with BCG Group, Microsoft also identified seven key ingredients for success in IoT:

■ Business Strategy

■ Leadership and Organization

■ A Technology Roadmap

■ Talent

■ Operations

■ Core Business Processes

■ Partnerships

■ Security

Methodology: Microsoft surveyed over 3,000 IoT decision-makers in enterprise organizations in order to give the industry a holistic, market-level view of the IoT ecosystem, including adoption rates, related technology trends, challenges, and benefits of IoT.

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Microsoft IoT Signals: A Global Overview of the IoT Landscape

IoT adoption is growing rapidly, and respondents believe 30% of their company’s revenue two years from now will be due to IoT, according to the new IoT Signals report from Microsoft Corp.

Yet, Microsoft also notes that the industry faces a significant IoT skills gap, as well as complexity and security challenges that may compromise business benefits to IoT if not addressed.


“IoT is transforming businesses in every industry and is powering breakthrough innovations,” said Sam George, Head of Azure IoT. “Our research shows that unlocking IoT’s full potential requires the industry to address key challenges like the skills shortage, security concerns and solution complexity. Microsoft is leading the way on simplifying and securing IoT so that every business on the planet can benefit.”

IoT Signals key findings:

■ 85% of respondents are in IoT adoption, and three-fourths of these have IoT projects in planning.

■ Among IoT adopters, 88% believe IoT is critical to business success.

■ IoT adopters believe they will see a 30% ROI, inclusive of cost savings and efficiencies, two years from now.

■ Nearly all IoT adopters — 97% — have security concerns when implementing IoT, but this is not hindering adoption.

■ 38% of IoT adopters cite complexity and technical challenges to using IoT as a barrier to furthering their IoT adoption.

■ Lack of talent and training present challenges for half of IoT adopters, and 47% say there are not enough available skilled workers.

■ Respondents believe critical technology drivers for IoT success in the next two years are AI, edge computing and 5G.

■ Nearly one-third of projects (30%) fail in the proof-of-concept stage, often because implementation is expensive or bottom-line benefits are unclear.

The proliferation of IoT devices is enabling companies to bring cloud intelligence to the edge, to create solutions that are adaptive and responsive to their environments.

“According to IDC’s Worldwide Global DataSphere IoT Devices and Data Forecast, IDC expects there to be 41.6 billion connected IoT devices by 2025 — growing at a rate of 8.9% over the forecast period,” said Carrie MacGillivray, Group VP, IoT, 5G and Mobility at IDC. “As the market continues to mature, IoT increasingly becomes the fabric enabling the exchange of information from ‘things’ to people and processes. Data becomes the common denominator — as it is captured, processed, and used from the nearest and farthest edges of the network to create value for industries, governments, and individuals’ lives.”

In partnership with BCG Group, Microsoft also identified seven key ingredients for success in IoT:

■ Business Strategy

■ Leadership and Organization

■ A Technology Roadmap

■ Talent

■ Operations

■ Core Business Processes

■ Partnerships

■ Security

Methodology: Microsoft surveyed over 3,000 IoT decision-makers in enterprise organizations in order to give the industry a holistic, market-level view of the IoT ecosystem, including adoption rates, related technology trends, challenges, and benefits of IoT.

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Reliability is no longer proven by uptime alone, according to the The SRE Report 2026 from LogicMonitor. In the AI era, it is experienced through speed, consistency, and user trust, and increasingly judged by business impact. As digital services grow more complex and AI systems move into production, traditional monitoring approaches are struggling to keep pace, increasing the need for AI-first observability that spans applications, infrastructure, and the Internet ...

The Hidden Data Engineering Work Required to Make Enterprise AI Viable

If AI is the engine of a modern organization, then data engineering is the road system beneath it. You can build the most powerful engine in the world, but without paved roads, traffic signals, and bridges that can support its weight, it will stall. In many enterprises, the engine is ready. The roads are not ...

Why AI Is the Differentiator for Operationally Resilient Organizations

In the world of digital-first business, there is no tolerance for service outages. Businesses know that outages are the quickest way to lose money and customers. For smaller organizations, unplanned downtime could even force the business to close ... A new study from PagerDuty, The State of AI-First Operations, reveals that companies actively incorporating AI into operations now view operational resilience as a growth driver rather than a cost center. But how are they achieving it? ...

Escaping Pilot Purgatory: How AI Becomes an Operational Advantage

In live financial environments, capital markets software cannot pause for rebuilds. New capabilities are introduced as stacked technology layers to meet evolving demands while systems remain active, data keeps moving, and controls stay intact. AI is no exception, and its opportunities are significant: accelerated decision cycles, compressed manual workflows, and more effective operations across complex environments. The constraint isn't the models themselves, but the architectural environments they enter ...

Closing the Gap in Modern Tech and the Tools Meant to Monitor Them

Like most digital transformation shifts, organizations often prioritize productivity and leave security and observability to keep pace. This usually translates to both the mass implementation of new technology and fragmented monitoring and observability (M&O) tooling. In the era of AI and varied cloud architecture, a disparate observability function can be dangerous. IT teams will lack a complete picture of their IT environment, making it harder to diagnose issues while slowing down mean time to resolve (MTTR). In fact, according to recent data from the SolarWinds State of Monitoring & Observability Report, 77% of IT personnel said the lack of visibility across their on-prem and cloud architecture was an issue ...