Stonebranch Releases 2026 Global State of IT Automation Report, Revealing Orchestration as the Missing Link for AI Adoption and Trust

New research shows hybrid IT orchestration, automation-as-a-service, and WLA investments are accelerating as AI workflow deployment scales across the enterprise.

Stonebranch, a leading provider of service orchestration and automation solutions, today released its annual 2026 Global State of IT Automation Report, the company’s most comprehensive research study to date.

Based on responses from 402 IT automation professionals spanning C-suite executives to individual contributors across North America, EMEA, Latin America, and APAC, the report provides a detailed, data-driven portrait of how enterprises are investing in, deploying, and deriving value from IT automation in 2026.

“This year’s findings highlight an important shift in how organizations approach automation,” said Giuseppe Damiani, CEO of Stonebranch. “Organizations are now building automation as strategic infrastructure — a governed, scalable foundation that spans hybrid environments, operationalizes AI, and delivers automation-as-a-service to thousands of users across the enterprise. The companies that get orchestration right are not just running more efficient IT operations. They are compressing time-to-market, strengthening their compliance posture, and accelerating the business outcomes that matter most to their stakeholders.”

The report documents a market at a critical inflection point. Hybrid IT infrastructure has emerged not as a transitional state but as the permanent operating model for enterprise technology. AI workflow adoption is accelerating, but has yet to reach enterprise-wide production scale at most organizations. And the discipline of orchestration — coordinating automation across fragmented, multi-platform, multi-cloud environments — has become the defining capability separating automation leaders from the rest of the market.

Key Insights from the 2026 Report

The 2026 report surfaces seven major trends shaping enterprise IT automation. Among the most significant findings:

• Hybrid IT Is the Enterprise Operating Model: Hybrid infrastructure has become the dominant model for modern enterprises. 88% of organizations now operate hybrid IT environments, increasing demand for automation platforms that can orchestrate workflows consistently across on-premises systems, cloud platforms, and containerized environments.
• Enterprise Orchestration Becomes the Automation Control Plane: Automation investments are expanding across cloud and workload automation (WLA) / service orchestration and automation platforms (SOAPs). With 64% of organizations investing in cloud automation and 50% investing in WLA/SOAP platforms, orchestration is emerging as the control plane that coordinates diverse automation tools across cloud, infrastructure, applications, and data workflows.
• Multi-platform complexity is the norm. Eighty-nine percent of enterprises use multiple WLA/SOAP tools, with three platforms being the most common configuration. Seventy-eight percent of organizations plan to add or replace an automation platform in the near term, signaling an active rationalization cycle.
• AI Workflow Adoption Is Growing, but Enterprise Scale Remains Limited: AI and large language model (LLM) tasks are increasingly appearing in automation workflows across teams. However, only 21% of organizations have reached enterprise-wide production, with integration complexity, governance readiness, and skills gaps slowing broader adoption. WLA/SOAP platforms rank second — behind only AI vendor tools — as the mechanism for embedding AI tasks into enterprise workflows.
• Automation Platform Functionality Has Overtaken Cost as the Primary Driver of Modernization: Organizations are modernizing their automation platforms to support broader enterprise adoption and future-ready capabilities. Sixty-nine percent of organizations planning platform changes cite more functionality or a more modern solution as the primary driver — up 21% since 2025. The most sought-after capabilities are self-service portals, modern user interfaces, SaaS deployment models, and AI-assisted workflow creation.
• Automation Has Become a Governed Enterprise Service: Automation usage is expanding across development, cloud, data, and business teams. While 93% of organizations now maintain centralized automation teams, 67% support more than 201 self-service automation users, accelerating the shift toward automation-as-a-service operating models. ITSM integrations, portals, and messaging tools have become the primary method of accessing WLA/SOAP services.
• Integration Depth is the Next Managed File Transfer (MFT) Differentiator: MFT remains a core component of enterprise automation ecosystems. Although 90% of organizations connect MFT tools with automation platforms, only 49% report full integration, highlighting the need for deeper orchestration to unify monitoring, recovery, and governance across workflows.

About the Global State of IT Automation Report

The 2026 Global State of IT Automation Report is based on a survey of 402 IT automation professionals conducted by Censuswide between January 9 and January 19, 2026. Respondents represent organizations with over 500 employees across North America, Latin America, EMEA, and APAC, and include professionals in IT operations, CloudOps, DataOps, PlatformOps, IT service management, and application development.

To download the full report, visit: https://www.stonebranch.com/resources/analyst-reports/global-state-of-it-automation

About Stonebranch

Stonebranch builds IT orchestration and automation solutions that transform business IT environments from simple IT task automation into sophisticated, real-time business service automation. No matter the degree of automation, the Stonebranch platform is simple, modern, and secure. Using Stonebranch Universal Automation Center, enterprises can seamlessly orchestrate workloads and data across technology ecosystems and silos. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with points of contact and support throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, Stonebranch serves some of the world’s largest financial, manufacturing, healthcare, travel, transportation, energy, and technology institutions.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260319468609/en/