Powered by AI, IT service delivery hits all-time highs

An IT ticket isn’t just a problem to be solved. Each one is a moment where employee experience is made or broken. In a new study, it’s clear that AI makes the moment.

According to Freshworks’ Freshservice Benchmark Report 2025, AI is improving IT service delivery, simplifying and enhancing employees’ work lives.

Based on an analysis of more than 187 million tickets from 10,551 organizations across 118 countries, the report reveals that for the first time in five years of benchmarking, IT teams are achieving record performance across every key metric—and AI is the driving force.

What’s more, the report reveals that AI-driven ITSM platforms and practices are transforming service delivery across the organization, beyond IT. For the first time, the report benchmarks enterprise service management (ESM) performance independently, tracking how individual non-IT business teams in HR, finance, and facilities are applying IT teams’ principles of service delivery and notching equally impressive results for their employees.

The payoff? Better employee experience, with customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores of 97.83%, the highest level recorded in the five years of benchmark reporting.

For IT leaders, the report is a roadmap. 

“This data doesn’t just capture the current state of IT service delivery,” notes Freshworks CIO Ashwin Ballal. “It illuminates the path forward for organizations ready to transform employee experience from an operational necessity into a competitive advantage.”

AI drives record-breaking performance gains

As the top companies in the report show, AI is improving EX by speeding IT service delivery—deflecting routine tickets and surfacing relevant knowledge for complex troubleshooting. When employees need help with software access, hardware malfunctions, or account permissions, AI agents like Freddy AI provide personalized, actionable responses by searching knowledge bases and employee data.

Read also: Simplicity and speed: How top customer support teams are thriving with AI

IT teams are achieving real results with AI: When they use Freddy AI Copilot, they see a 76.6% decrease in ticket resolution time and 41.1% improvement in first response time. Freddy AI Agent notches a 65.7% ticket deflection rate. Together, these AI solutions are saving IT support agents 431,270 hours annually—equivalent to 49 years of saved work.

Overall, for IT teams deploying AI, the 2025 key performance indicators reflect the best-ever results over five years of reporting:

• Average resolution time: 21.96 hours

• Average first response time: 9.36 hours

• Average first assign time: 15.8 hours

• First contact resolution: 74.14%

• Resolution SLA adherence: 96.16%

Employee experience improves across the organization

For the first time, this year’s report tracks service delivery among non-IT teams such as finance, HR, facilities, and legal that are using Freshservice’s AI-driven IT service delivery platforms. Enterprise service management (ESM) is beginning to reflect the gains seen in IT-specific service management.

And although it is early days of AI tool adoption for many of these teams, the KPI metrics for their tickets closely follow those of IT teams’ results:

• Average resolution time: 29.08 hours

• Average first response time: 13.30 hours

• Average first assign time: 28.93 hours

• First contact resolution: 79.5%

• Resolution SLA adherence: 94.2%

The takeaway: What started as a solution for IT teams is now powering service delivery across the enterprise. “The shift isn’t just operational, it’s cultural,” notes the report.

For every 14 IT agents, there are now 10 business agents using Freshservice for internal service delivery. The data shows that these business teams are thriving, with first contact resolution rates of 79.5%—an outcome that even surpasses IT teams’ performance.

4 steps to meet—or exceed—IT service benchmarks

To keep pace with or exceed the results of the top performers, organizations should focus on these concrete steps:

• Boost AI-powered automation: Use AI copilots for agent assistance and AI agents for ticket deflection (76.6% faster resolution)

• Build comprehensive self-service capabilities: Deploy knowledge base systems with 50+ articles, allowing employees to solve problems independently and reducing agent workload (5% faster average resolution time)

• Extend ITSM principles enterprise-wide: Apply unified IT platforms and practices to non-IT business teams, rather than department-specific point solutions

In recent years, future-looking companies have been adopting AI in IT service delivery. If the report shows anything, it’s that the future is here. 

Notes Ballal, “The question isn’t whether your organization will adapt to this reality, it’s whether you’ll lead the transformation or be swept along by it.”

Download the full report: Freshservice Benchmark Report 2025