Panel discussion: Observability in the AI age

At ObservabilityCON 2025, industry leaders Neil Laughlin (AuditBoard) and Jeremy White (SpotOn) joined Grafana Labs’ Dave Russell for a candid discussion on how artificial intelligence is reshaping observability and platform engineering. Both speakers shared real-world insights from their organizations’ journeys toward unified observability – moving from fragmented, tool-specific monitoring to AI-assisted systems that accelerate triage, improve data correlation, and unlock deeper context across metrics, logs, and traces. They emphasized that AI is not a replacement for engineering expertise but a powerful collaborator that helps teams focus on solving the right problems faster.

Throughout the conversation, the panelists reflected on the cultural and operational lessons from early AI adoption: start small, show value quickly, and focus on practical use cases that improve developer experience and cross-team collaboration. From AuditBoard’s use of AI to simplify queries and documentation, to SpotOn’s integration of AI-driven triage for field devices and SaaS systems, both leaders see AI as key to bridging the gap between data and decision-making. Their takeaway: the future of observability will depend on how effectively organizations pair human creativity with machine intelligence to make systems—and teams—more resilient, efficient, and informed.