AI, Humans, and the Hybrid Reality of IT in 2026

IT teams are under pressure to move faster, reduce risk, and support more devices than ever. Many are still stuck reacting to issues instead of preventing them. That tension sits at the center of the latest Autonomous IT Live show.

In this conversation, Automox CEO Justin Talerico joins host Landon Miles for a candid discussion on IT burnout, automation trust, tool sprawl, and how work should be divided between people and machines.

For full context and the unscripted discussion, watch the complete Autonomous IT Live show on YouTube.

Burnout comes up a lot in IT conversations, but it rarely starts with people. It starts with systems.

As endpoints drift from their intended state through missed patches, configuration changes, or unmanaged software, the work piles up. IT teams feel the operational strain. The business carries the security and performance risk.

Justin connected burnout directly to scale and endpoint drift, noting that “individuals are trying to keep thousands of machines from drifting out of sync, and that’s stressful.”

Remote and hybrid work have made this harder. Managing devices spread across locations and operating systems is no longer realistic with manual effort alone. When most of the day is spent reacting, burnout becomes structural.

Justin shared how this challenge has existed for decades, only now on a much larger scale.

Automation should make life easier, but many teams still hesitate to rely on it. The reason is trust.

Manual work feels familiar. You know what changed because you did it yourself. Automation can feel risky when it behaves like a black box.

During the show, Justin summarized the trust challenge this way: 

“People feel safer with mistakes they understand than with a black box making mistakes on their behalf.”

Automation earns trust when it explains what it is doing, why it is doing it, and how the outcome improves security or performance. Without that transparency, teams fall back on manual processes, even when those processes increase errors and fatigue.

There are two phrases many IT teams recognize instantly: “It’s automated, don’t worry about it” and “I’ll just handle it manually.”

Justin was clear that neither approach is safe.

Blind automation removes visibility and accountability. Manual heroics increase fatigue and mistakes. Both scale poorly.

IT works best in the middle. Machines handle repetition and pattern recognition. People stay focused on decisions, exceptions, and strategy.

That balance comes up repeatedly in the conversation. You can see how it applies to real patching and remediation workflows in the full Autonomous IT Live show.

As organizations add tools to solve new problems, complexity builds quietly. Many teams now run large stacks of products that detect issues but struggle to fix them.

Operational maturity is not about having more tools. It is about having fewer tools that work together and produce clear outcomes.

When tools step on each other, teams lose confidence in both failures and successes. That uncertainty keeps organizations stuck in reactive mode.

Endpoints generate hundreds of data points each. At scale, that becomes overwhelming.

No one is reviewing hundreds of signals across thousands of devices and finding patterns by hand. That work belongs to machines.

Justin put it plainly:

“You’re not putting eyes on 300 data points on 5,000 devices and coming up with good solutions. Computers can do that part.”

AI excels at pattern recognition and scale. Humans add value by defining standards, setting policy, and deciding how to act. The live show discussion reinforces that the future of IT depends on trusting machines with analysis while keeping people responsible for direction.

IT often gets framed as a cost center because the benefits of healthy endpoints are hard to see. When things work, nothing breaks.

Justin talked about how IT teams gain credibility when they can demonstrate outcomes like reduced risk, improved performance, and consistency over time. When leadership can see that connection, IT shifts from playing defense to acting as a strategic lever.

Most teams know they are stuck responding to issues. What they lack is time and space to change that reality.

Firefighting fills the calendar. Planning never quite happens. Over time, the cycle reinforces itself.

Justin described this as a vicious loop where teams are too busy reacting to even think about becoming proactive. Breaking out requires leadership to see endpoint health as both a risk and an opportunity.

One point the group agreed on quickly: some decisions should never happen without human involvement.

AI should not act alone during active incidents, breach response, or external communication. Autonomous IT still requires accountability.

Justin summed it up during the game:

“That repetitive pattern recognition is best left to computers. The strategic decision-making is best left to people.”

The future of IT is not about removing people. It is about removing unnecessary work so people can focus on what actually matters.

If these challenges sound familiar, the full conversation is worth your time. Catch it on YouTube and hear Automox CEO Justin Talerico discuss the examples and lessons that go deeper than this recap.