Research Report
2026
2026 Catchpoint SRE Report
5 Reliability Trends Reshaping Modern IT

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Based on a survey of 400+ reliability professionals worldwide.
Executive Summary
Reliability Is Expanding Beyond Uptime
Reliability isn’t just about keeping systems up anymore. The 2026 SRE Report shows a broader shift underway: from uptime to experience, from toil to intelligence, from tools to strategy, and from systems to people. As digital expectations rise, teams are being pushed to think beyond outage prevention and focus on speed, resilience, integration, and continuous learning. Modern reliability now lives at the intersection of technical performance, business impact, and human capability.
Five Trends Defining
Reliability in 2026
Reliability in 2026
The research points to a bigger shift: reliability is becoming faster, smarter, more intentional, and more deeply tied to business outcomes
Speed Is the New Trust
Users don’t distinguish between downtime and lag. When applications slow down, trust erodes fast, and reliability becomes a matter of experience, not just uptime.

AI Is Reducing Some Toil, but Not All of It
AI is starting to ease repetitive work, but the impact is uneven across teams and roles. For many practitioners, the reality is still mixed and evolving.

Resilience Has to Be Practiced
Teams that deliberately test failure build more confidence and preparedness. But production chaos engineering is still far from standard practice.
Integration Shapes AI’s Value
AI works best when signals are unified, governed, and connected. Fragmented tooling makes it harder to turn data into useful action.

Learning Is a Reliability Issue
Reliable systems depend on teams that have time to grow. Yet most engineers still learn in the margins, without protected time.
See Where Reliability Is Headed Next
Get the full 2026 SRE Report for survey data, expert commentary, and a deeper look at the trends changing how modern teams define and deliver reliability.
METHODOLOGY
About This Research
The SRE Survey used to generate this report was open in July and August 2025 and received 418 responses from reliability professionals worldwide, representing a range of roles, ranks, company sizes, and industries.





