Fleet survey finds 68% of Apple IT admins use AI for troubleshooting
More than 250 admins managing Apple devices reported AI use for scripts and profiles, while 69% said they cannot roll back a bad change within an hour.
Fleet has published a survey of more than 250 enterprise IT staff who manage Apple devices, finding that most of them use AI in their daily work while many struggle to undo faulty configuration changes quickly. The report was covered by 9to5mac.com.
All respondents hold admin access to their device management systems, and they manage an average of 2,000 devices. Nearly half have 6 to 10 years of Apple admin experience. In the past 30 days, 68% used AI for troubleshooting or log analysis, 62% used it to write scripts, and 61% used it to author device management profiles or configurations.
AI output does not enter production unchecked. 86% of respondents allow AI-written output into production after some form of review, while 14% keep it out of production entirely.
Recovery remains a weak point. 69% of respondents said they cannot roll back a bad configuration change within an hour, and 43% need more than a day. 26% said they can recover the same day, but only by doing it by hand. Asked about their biggest challenge, 31% named keeping up with Apple's release cadence.
On newer management methods, 53% said they already have declarative device management in production. Fleet CEO Mike McNeil said Mac admins are essentially engineers now regardless of their job titles.
Separately, Apple @ Work columnist Bradley Chambers has been an Apple IT admin since 2009, deploying firewalls, switches, MDM systems, WiFi, and thousands of Macs and iPads. The column is sponsored by Mosyle, an Apple device management platform.
Quick answers
How many IT staff did Fleet survey?
More than 250 enterprise IT staff who manage Apple devices, all of whom hold admin access to their device management systems.
What share of admins use AI for scripting?
62% of respondents said they used AI to write scripts in the past 30 days, while 61% used it to author device management profiles or configurations.
How many admins have declarative device management in production?
53% of respondents said they already have declarative device management in production.