AI Moves IT Management Platforms Toward Autonomy, ISG says
Companies seek more automation, orchestration and governance as IT operations and cost pressures grow, new research says
The 2026 ISG Buyers Guides™ for IT Management provide the rankings and ratings of 83 software providers and their products for management of IT operations. The series includes Buyers Guides evaluating platforms for managing IT services, assets and observability, along with enterprise services, IT financial operations (FinOps) and AI-enabled IT operations (AIOps). The research finds that these platforms have evolved from reactive systems into predictive control planes, a trend driven by the growth of AI, automation and integrated platform architectures.
“AI introduces a different dynamic to service management with systems that can interpret context, generate actions and adapt workflows in real time,” said
IT management platforms have become operational control planes that coordinate people, processes, assets and technology across increasingly distributed environments. They now encompass cloud services, DevOps pipelines, SaaS applications, outsourced operations and digital employee experiences. At the same time, enterprise service management (ESM) is extending service management into functions such as human resources, facilities, finance and shared services, enhancing consistency, accountability and automation. AI is accelerating this evolution by enabling platforms to move from workflow execution to intelligent orchestration and autonomous action.
Enterprises increasingly expect IT management platforms to operate seamlessly across on-premises infrastructure, cloud environments, SaaS ecosystems and third-party services while supporting remote and hybrid workforces. Visibility has become foundational, as security, compliance, resilience and cost optimization depend on accurate data about assets, configurations, dependencies and service relationships. As a result, IT management platforms are becoming the connective layer between observability, AIOps, FinOps, security operations and asset management, providing the context for automating decisions and coordinating actions across domains.
Asset management is also becoming more specialized as organizations seek greater control over software consumption, hardware lifecycles and technology costs. Many now evaluate software and hardware asset management capabilities separately, reflecting the growing complexity of SaaS licensing, cloud subscriptions, endpoint proliferation and regulatory requirements. Effective IT asset management increasingly depends on integrating discovery, lifecycle management, financial accountability and governance across both software and hardware estates.
AI is making IT management less reactive and more predictive and autonomous. Organizations are already using machine learning and generative AI to summarize incidents, recommend remediation actions, generate automation scripts and accelerate service delivery. The next phase involves agentic AI systems coordinating service management, observability, asset management and operations platforms. Through 2027, ISG expects 50 percent of enterprises to adopt ITSM software with agentic AI for proactive issue detection, incident resolution and workflow orchestration with minimal human intervention. As trust, governance and operational safeguards mature, AI-enabled platforms will increasingly execute routine operations independently.
Enterprises evaluating IT management platforms should prioritize strong workflow capabilities with broad ecosystem integration, high-quality operational data and a credible roadmap toward AI-enabled autonomy. Organizations should also assess how well platforms support enterprise service management, asset governance, observability and financial accountability, as these capabilities are increasingly interconnected. Strong governance, transparency and human oversight mechanisms will remain essential as enterprises delegate more decisions to AI-powered systems.
For the 2026 ISG Buyers Guides for IT Management, ISG produced seven Buyers Guides: IT Service Management Platforms (ITSM), IT Asset Management Platforms (ITAM), Enterprise Service Management Platforms (ESM), AIOps Platforms, IT Observability Platforms, IT Observability Platforms Emerging Providers and IT Management FinOps Platforms. Each covers the essential platform categories and products in the given technology segment. A total of 83 providers were assessed: Aisera, Alemba,
ISG rates software providers in five evaluation categories: Overall, Product Experience, Capability, Platform and Customer Experience. Providers ranked in the top three for each evaluation category are named as Leaders. Within each platform category, those that meet the greatest proportion of our evaluation criteria are named as Overall Leaders.
In the Buyers Guides for ITSM Platforms, ITAM Platforms, ESM Platforms, AIOps Platforms and IT Observability Platforms, ServiceNow was the top Overall Leader.
ServiceNow was followed by Salesforce and BMC as Overall Leaders for ITSM Platforms, Ivanti and Freshworks for ITAM Platforms, BMC and Salesforce for ESM Platforms, Dynatrace and Salesforce for AIOps Platforms and Dynatrace and BMC for IT Observability Platforms.
In the Buyers Guide for IT Observability Emerging Providers, Zabbix was the top Overall Leader, followed by Logz.io and
In addition, the following providers were rated as Exemplary or Innovative in each of the Buyers Guides:
IT Service Management Platforms (ITSM): BMC, Freshworks, Ivanti, ManageEngine, Matrix42, Salesforce, ServiceNow and Zendesk were rated Exemplary. Alemba, Atera,
IT Asset Management Platforms (ITAM): IBM, Ivanti, Freshworks, Flexera, Matrix42 and ServiceNow were rated Exemplary. Lansweeper and ManageEngine were rated Innovative.
Enterprise Service Management Platforms (ESM): Atlassian, BMC, Freshworks, Ivanti, ManageEngine, Salesforce and ServiceNow were rated Exemplary.
AIOps Platforms: Atlassian, BMC, Broadcom, Cisco, Datadog, Dynatrace, Elastic, IBM, PagerDuty, Salesforce and ServiceNow were rated Exemplary. Digitate, Fabrix.ai and
IT Observability Platforms: BMC, Cisco, Datadog, Dynatrace, Elastic,
IT Observability Platforms Emerging Providers: Logz.io and
IT Management FinOps Platforms: AWS, Broadcom, Datadog, Flexera,
“To find IT management software that will deliver sustained value, enterprises need to use a disciplined evaluation process based on clearly defined criteria,” said
The ISG Buyers Guides for IT Management are the distillation of more than a year of market and product research efforts. The research is not sponsored nor influenced by software providers and is conducted solely to help enterprises optimize their business and IT software investments.
Visit this webpage to learn more about the ISG Buyers Guides for IT Management and read executive summaries of each of the seven reports. The complete reports, including provider rankings across seven product and customer experience dimensions and detailed research findings on each provider, are available by contacting ISG.
About ISG
ISG (Nasdaq: III) is a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm. A trusted partner to more than 900 clients, including 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is a long-time leader in technology and business services that is now at the forefront of leveraging AI to help organizations achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm, founded in 2006, is known for its proprietary market data and research, in-depth knowledge and governance of provider ecosystems, and the expertise of its 1,500 professionals worldwide working together to help clients maximize the value of their technology investments.
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Press Contacts:
Laura Hupprich, ISG
+1 203 517 3132
laura.hupprich@isg-one.com
Erik Arvidson, Matter Communications for ISG
+1 978 518 4542
isg@matternow.com
Source: Information Services Group, Inc.
