AI Interest Is Outpacing Network Readiness

SAN JOSE, Calif., November 17, 2025 – Broadcom today unveiled the results of a new study that found there is a readiness gap between the desire for AI and network preparedness. The report, “The State of Network Operations, 2026: AI and its Effect on Enterprise NetOps,” found that while 99% of organizations have cloud strategies and are adopting AI, less than half (49%) say their networks can support the bandwidth and low latency that AI requires. Respondents also cite continued poor network visibility as a critical factor impeding AI success.

“Ready or not, enterprises are going full throttle on AI,” said Mike Melillo, senior director, Network Observability Solutions, Broadcom. “For network professionals, this is both good news and bad. The network is the foundation of AI strategy, but 95% of teams can’t see what matters, putting their AI initiatives at risk. As the use of network automation tools increases, NetOps teams should look for solutions that provide true end-to-end visibility, AI triage, and predictive insights to support an intelligent, AI-ready network operations center.”

Key findings from this research include:

• Growing network complexity and AI use impact visibility—Given the rampant adoption of AI, the survey sought to understand the correlation between network operations and AI success. The top networking challenges impacting AI are network congestion (46%), followed by insufficient visibility (39%), congested traffic flows (38%), and latency (37%).
• Operations teams lack information and visibility—Fully 87% of respondents report that internet and cloud environments create network blind spots, and 95% say they lack visibility into key segments, especially the public cloud. In addition, network teams continue to struggle with managing ISPs (43%), and about half cite insufficient budget, followed by lack of expertise in new networking technologies (37%).
• Continued reliance on third-party solutions—Not surprisingly, these day-to-day challenges have led to a growing reliance on third parties for network operations, cited by 76%. Organizations turn to third parties for supporting global operations (56%), outsourcing strategy (46%), lack of expertise (43%), and staff shortages (40%).
• Automation and AI adoption are in the early stage—Despite widespread interest, the deployment and maturity of automation is surprisingly limited. In fact, nearly three-quarters are still in basic or standardized automation stages, and only 23% have deployed AI-enabled observability solutions.
• Trust and transparency are barriers to AI operations—The research found 71% don’t fully trust AI for network decisions. This is apparent in the top tasks respondents are hoping AI can help with: cloud-to-cloud monitoring (50%), global internet performance visibility (46%), and public cloud network performance visibility (45%).

To learn more about the trends in network automation and AI, download the report here.

Survey methodology

Networking, operations, cloud, and architecture professionals at medium to enterprise-sized companies representing all seniority levels were invited to participate in a survey on their company’s AI initiatives and network management. A total of 1,362 qualified participants from five continents completed the survey (505 in 2024 and 857 in 2025).

About Broadcom

Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) is a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. Broadcom’s category-leading product portfolio serves critical markets including data center, networking, enterprise software, broadband, wireless, storage and industrial. Our solutions include data center networking and storage, enterprise, mainframe, and cyber security software focused on automation, monitoring and security, smartphone components, telecoms, and factory automation. For more information, go to www.broadcom.com.