Back in February, we gathered in London for another unforgettable edition of PagerDuty on Tour—a day punctuated by inspiring conversations, plenty of forward-thinking strategies, and networking opportunities. As I looked around the packed room, filled with industry peers and valued customers, I was reminded why now more than ever, modern operations isn’t a “nice to have” but a strategic imperative.

A Day of Bold Insights and Meaningful Connections

The London agenda was as dynamic as it gets. We kicked things off with a welcome that set the tone: a celebration of our journey from the early days—when digital operations was a mere concept—to an era where AI and automation are redefining how enterprises tackle critical, real-time work. Our story—which spans over a decade of pioneering digital operations—was set against the backdrop of today’s urgent challenges. The discussions were refreshingly candid, with speakers celebrating “failure-ready” cultures and the notion that incidents, when treated as learning opportunities, become a catalyst for continuous innovation.

In one memorable fireside chat, Nora Jones sat down with Andy White, Director of Technology Operations at Checkout.com, whose stories of shifting from chaotic, overpopulated Slack channels to a lean, automated incident workflow were both eye-opening and energizing. His candid account of the evolution at Checkout.com—from manually paging employees to leveraging full-stack automation and even AI-driven diagnostics—offered a tangible blueprint for other organizations transitioning from legacy to modern operations. What struck me was his honesty about the challenges of removing “the human from that loop” and yet embracing that change to scale operational resiliency.

We also explored the disruptive side of outages. Industry experts, Laura Morgan from Spotify and Julia Weimer from Wiz drove home the message: operational resilience underpins customer trust. With 91% of UK IT and business execs convinced that major incidents are a matter of “when” rather than “if,” the imperative to build a system that anticipates failure—and learns from it—is clearer than ever. This message carries particular weight given that outage costs have risen to an average of $850,000 per hour. As a trusted partner to two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies and over 6,000 EMEA organizations, we understand the critical nature of this challenge and the importance of getting it right.

Elizabeth Nguli, Head of Global Cloud Engineering at Vodafone, shared how embedding AI-driven diagnostics into incident workflows isn’t just tech for tech’s sake—it’s about reducing response times and taking the manual toil off the shoulders of on-call teams. And she’s not alone. In fact, the numbers are clear: 88% of IT leaders are already planning to integrate AI agents into their operations in the next couple of years.

Lastly, Andy Slater from Specsavers candidly talked about empowering teams with self-service tools to erase manual toil and let people focus on innovation. This session felt like a nudge to all leaders: you have the tools; now grab them and start transforming your day-to-day operations.

Our hands-on tech workshops on operational excellence, automation standardization, and incident management were a standout, giving attendees practical tools and insights to accelerate their digital transformation journeys.

Championing an AI-First Approach

Jeff Hausman, our Chief Product Development Officer, delivered a keynote that perfectly encapsulated our vision: that the future of operations lies in the seamless integration of human expertise with AI and automation. From real-world examples of how our customers are transforming their operational strategies, to the evolution of our newly introduced AI agents, the message was unmistakable—winner organizations are not just adopting new technologies; they’re embedding them into the very fabric of their operational DNA. And CIOs are leading the charge in recognizing Agentic AI as a crucial capability. It’s time for practitioners to catch up to this vision and embrace the transformative potential of AI in operations.

I was particularly inspired by the vision of a modern operations lifecycle where every phase—predictive alerts, rapid diagnostics, and even post-incident reviews—is enhanced by intelligent, automated workflows. It was a day that underscored our commitment to not merely keeping pace with technological change, but leading the conversation as an operations cloud that connects people, processes, and technology.

A Call to Action for the Future

What resonated with me most from these sessions was a reaffirmed belief: Operations is not a cost center. It is a competitive advantage. Our partners and customers have seen firsthand the results—a potential reduction of incident response times, decreased noise from unnecessary alerts, and ultimately, the preservation of customer trust. The energy in the room affirmed that when you combine deep operational knowledge with an AI-first mindset, the potential is not just incremental improvement—it’s transformational.

As we move forward, I encourage every leader in digital operations to take that first step. Start small, test, iterate, and most importantly, learn from every misstep. Embrace the change because innovation, after all, is a journey where failure is simply a stepping stone toward success. Let’s continue to be partners—learning, growing, and pushing the boundaries of what modern operations can achieve.

I’m incredibly proud to be a part of this journey and excited for the conversations we’ll continue to have in the future. Thank you to everyone who made PagerDuty on Tour London a tremendous success. You can now watch all the PagerDuty on Tour sessions (including London, Sydney, Tokyo, and San Francisco) on demand.