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ServiceOps: ITSM and ITOps Move from Cooperation to Collaboration

Valerie O'Connell
EMA

Nothing drives IT change like … change. There has been plenty of that to go around in the past few years. Planned digital transformation initiatives turbocharged into accelerated implementation as employees working from anywhere raised the stakes of day-to-day IT operations to business-critical levels.

Complexity, criticality, and the velocity/volume of change transformed AI/ML and automation from pilots into survival essentials. In response, enterprises increasingly turned to platforms for AI-enabled end-end visibility, workflows, and action.

It stands to reason that all of these changes would drive advances in how the core functions of IT service and IT operations work together. EMA undertook a deep dive research project with 400+ global IT leaders to understand the practical realities of IT ServiceOps today and in the near future.

Spoiler alert: Part technology and organizational approach, ServiceOps by any name will become the prevailing IT operational model because it is practical and makes good business sense.

Staffed by very different talent profiles aimed at distinct spheres of responsibility, the two groups traditionally interacted only when absolutely required by circumstances such as outages and changes required by DevOps. Today, the notion of ServiceOps represents the growing fact that in a healthy enterprise, it is increasingly difficult to say where one function ends and another begins. It's all about IT service to the business, and there is no service without effective IT operations.

Execution and service are inextricable.

It turns out that organizational siloes can be just as deadening as siloed toolsets and systems. The combination of AI and automation can mitigate both. Automation, AI/ML/analytics, and platforms that welcome cross-functional workflows make cooperation a practical reality. The research panel covered a lot of ground when asked.

How Do IT Operations and ITSM Collaborate Using AI/ML and Automation?

In this converged reality, both ITOps and ITSM take advantage of mutually beneficial solutions that are aimed at and measured by business goals. The long-heralded IT/business alignment is a natural byproduct of cross-functional capabilities, as well as a prerequisite to effective IT automation.

ITSM and ITOps remain distinct functions with specific charters. However, shared technology softens the boundaries and moves them closer organizationally. The research showed very strong correlation between the degree to which IT service and operations collaborate using AI-enabled automation and self-reported quality of IT service, end-user experience, business innovation, and increased IT budget.

ServiceOps, by whatever name, will soon be the prevailing IT operational model. It is the logical product of common sense and technology combined for practical purposes. Both IT service and IT operations have to be at the top of their respective games. Hitting that mark calls for platform-enabled, AI-assisted automation that flexibly connects people and machines across the enterprise.

Digital transformation, business innovation, and a world filled with surprises guarantee a constant state of change in IT. With a heavy assist from technology, the ServiceOps model positions IT to be organizationally as responsive and agile as the business demands.

Valerie O'Connell is EMA Research Director of Digital Service Execution

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In 2026, the cost of downtime or an outage is no longer just a technical inconvenience; it's a $600 billion wake up call for global businesses. As our digital ecosystems become  more interconnected, each touchpoint introduces new risks and multiplies the consequences when things go wrong. And the data is clear: aggregate downtime costs  for Global 2,000 companies have surged 50% since 2024, reaching a staggering $600 billion ...

Deloitte found that 74% of enterprises expect to deploy agentic AI solutions in the next 24 months. However, the rush to deployment is outpacing foundational work, though. Only 21% of enterprises have fully formed agent governance models in place. The result? AI agents deployed without guidance or governance begin to function as fragmented islands of complexity ...

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I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

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Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...

ServiceOps: ITSM and ITOps Move from Cooperation to Collaboration

Valerie O'Connell
EMA

Nothing drives IT change like … change. There has been plenty of that to go around in the past few years. Planned digital transformation initiatives turbocharged into accelerated implementation as employees working from anywhere raised the stakes of day-to-day IT operations to business-critical levels.

Complexity, criticality, and the velocity/volume of change transformed AI/ML and automation from pilots into survival essentials. In response, enterprises increasingly turned to platforms for AI-enabled end-end visibility, workflows, and action.

It stands to reason that all of these changes would drive advances in how the core functions of IT service and IT operations work together. EMA undertook a deep dive research project with 400+ global IT leaders to understand the practical realities of IT ServiceOps today and in the near future.

Spoiler alert: Part technology and organizational approach, ServiceOps by any name will become the prevailing IT operational model because it is practical and makes good business sense.

Staffed by very different talent profiles aimed at distinct spheres of responsibility, the two groups traditionally interacted only when absolutely required by circumstances such as outages and changes required by DevOps. Today, the notion of ServiceOps represents the growing fact that in a healthy enterprise, it is increasingly difficult to say where one function ends and another begins. It's all about IT service to the business, and there is no service without effective IT operations.

Execution and service are inextricable.

It turns out that organizational siloes can be just as deadening as siloed toolsets and systems. The combination of AI and automation can mitigate both. Automation, AI/ML/analytics, and platforms that welcome cross-functional workflows make cooperation a practical reality. The research panel covered a lot of ground when asked.

How Do IT Operations and ITSM Collaborate Using AI/ML and Automation?

In this converged reality, both ITOps and ITSM take advantage of mutually beneficial solutions that are aimed at and measured by business goals. The long-heralded IT/business alignment is a natural byproduct of cross-functional capabilities, as well as a prerequisite to effective IT automation.

ITSM and ITOps remain distinct functions with specific charters. However, shared technology softens the boundaries and moves them closer organizationally. The research showed very strong correlation between the degree to which IT service and operations collaborate using AI-enabled automation and self-reported quality of IT service, end-user experience, business innovation, and increased IT budget.

ServiceOps, by whatever name, will soon be the prevailing IT operational model. It is the logical product of common sense and technology combined for practical purposes. Both IT service and IT operations have to be at the top of their respective games. Hitting that mark calls for platform-enabled, AI-assisted automation that flexibly connects people and machines across the enterprise.

Digital transformation, business innovation, and a world filled with surprises guarantee a constant state of change in IT. With a heavy assist from technology, the ServiceOps model positions IT to be organizationally as responsive and agile as the business demands.

Valerie O'Connell is EMA Research Director of Digital Service Execution

Hot Topics

The Latest

AI is becoming the operating system of the enterprise. It acts as an invisible coordination layer that understands intent, connects systems, and executes work across complex SaaS environments. Previously, employees had to click through multiple systems — CRM, ERP, support tools, collaboration platforms — to complete a single task. Now, instead of navigating each application manually, they can simply state what they need to accomplish ...

In 2026, the cost of downtime or an outage is no longer just a technical inconvenience; it's a $600 billion wake up call for global businesses. As our digital ecosystems become  more interconnected, each touchpoint introduces new risks and multiplies the consequences when things go wrong. And the data is clear: aggregate downtime costs  for Global 2,000 companies have surged 50% since 2024, reaching a staggering $600 billion ...

Deloitte found that 74% of enterprises expect to deploy agentic AI solutions in the next 24 months. However, the rush to deployment is outpacing foundational work, though. Only 21% of enterprises have fully formed agent governance models in place. The result? AI agents deployed without guidance or governance begin to function as fragmented islands of complexity ...

Cloud spending is no longer viewed as a passthrough IT expense, but as a strategic financial lever that directly impacts innovation capacity, profitability and enterprise resilience, according to the CFO Cloud Cost Optimization Report from Azul ...

As AI moves from generating responses to performing actions, the need for trust increases exponentially. And as organizations enlist AI agents for increasingly sophisticated business processes, trust is going to be the single most important theme for spurring adoption. What can organizations do to build trustworthy AI agents? ...

I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...