New Relic: telcos go AI‑first in observability push

New Relic has published new research that compares observability adoption in telecommunications and technology companies and links stronger returns with the use of AI monitoring.

The State of Observability for Telecommunications and Technology report draws on survey responses from more than 500 engineering leaders and IT team members. It uses data from the New Relic 2025 Observability Forecast.

The report frames observability as a response to frequent outages and rising complexity. It also points to different priorities across the two sectors, with telecommunications firms leaning into AI monitoring sooner, while technology companies report wider use of established monitoring and DevOps practices.

Outage pressure

According to the research, 57% of telecommunications respondents said they experience high-business-impact outages weekly or more. The equivalent figure for technology companies was 27%.

The report also estimates the cost of high-impact outages at an average of $2 million per hour for telecommunications companies, compared with $1.6 million per hour for technology companies.

New Relic said outages in telecommunications can carry broader consequences than revenue loss and operational disruption. The report notes that an outage can represent a public safety crisis and can carry implications for regulatory action.

AI monitoring

The report said telecommunications companies are adopting AI monitoring at a higher rate than technology companies. It found that 74% of telecoms respondents have deployed AI monitoring. New Relic compared this with a global average of 54% across all industries.

In the technology sector, the report found that less than 52% of respondents are deploying AI monitoring. It also found that 94% plan to do so in the next three years.

New Relic also reported that AI technologies are the top strategic driver for observability adoption in both industries. It said 32% of telecommunications respondents and 38% of technology respondents cited AI technologies as the number one driver.

Different approaches

The research describes two paths to observability maturity. It says telecoms firms take an "AI-focused approach" while technology companies pursue what it calls a "methodical, bottom-up approach".

Technology organisations reported higher deployment rates in several established areas. New Relic said 71% of technology respondents currently deploy alerts and network monitoring. It said 69% use Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment practices.

The report also said technology organisations show high deployment rates of foundational capabilities. It highlighted infrastructure monitoring, Application Performance Monitoring and distributed tracing.

The research argues that automation priorities now cut across both sectors, despite differences in starting point. It describes AI-driven initiatives as a unifying theme for observability investment decisions.

ROI claims

New Relic said both sectors reported strong returns from observability investments. The report found that 58% of telecommunications respondents and 49% of technology respondents reported a return on investment of 2-3x or more.

It also said 10% of telecoms respondents reported between 5-10x returns.

The report links observability to business performance measures in both sectors. It said 50% of respondents stated that observability helps them achieve business KPIs. New Relic compared that with an overall average of 36% across all respondents.

New Relic Chief Technology Strategist Nic Benders commented on the differences the report claims to show across industries.

"This data is powerful because it shows more than one path to observability maturity. For telcos, they face extreme pressure from high outage costs and are successfully leapfrogging traditional monitoring to go AI-first, while IT organisations are leveraging their strengths by building a developer-centric foundation," said New Relic Chief Technology Strategist Nic Benders, New Relic.

"For both industries, observability is no longer just a technical tool; it is a key strategy driving business performance as well as operational stability across both the telecommunications and technology industries," said Benders.

Benefits and priorities

The report breaks out perceived benefits of observability by sector. For technology organisations, it said operational efficiency was the most cited benefit at 43%. It said improved uptime and reliability followed at 40%.

For telecoms companies, New Relic said improved system uptime was the most cited benefit at 38%. It said improved developer productivity followed at 32%.

New Relic also highlighted two implementation priorities. It said 49% of technology respondents and 42% of telecommunications respondents planned to train staff to use observability platforms.

The report also pointed to consolidation plans. It said 47% of technology respondents and 37% of telecommunications respondents plan to consolidate observability tools in the future.

New Relic said technology companies expect wider AI monitoring deployment over the next three years, while telecoms companies continue to prioritise AI-first approaches alongside existing observability programmes.