Organizations, MSSPs, and other partners are bringing in more systems and tools to address the escalating and quickly expanding threat landscape they face. However, while arming themselves with more protections, they’re also creating security environments that are inefficient, with security gaps leaving teams overwhelmed by the number of alerts and false positives that pour in daily through their multiple dashboards.
It’s not a new phenomenon. Security teams have long been under pressure. However, the new security environments that they have on hand are making the pressures worse.
“What starts as a simple observability setup can rapidly evolve into a fragmented ecosystem of redundant dashboards, stale or noisy alerts, and unclear ownership,” officials with
Datadog, a cloud monitoring platform provider, wrote in a
blog post last month. “Without a deliberate strategy, teams risk being overwhelmed by alert fatigue, misaligned metrics, and dashboards that no longer reflect reality.”
Studies are backing that up. One
released last month by cybersecurity firm
Heimdal Security and MSSP
FutureSafe outlined the problem for MSPs, finding that 89% of those surveyed said they struggled with tool integration – and must move between separate dashboards and deal with manual workflows – and 56% experience alert fatigue daily or weekly.
The average MSP runs five security tools. That said, 20% manage seven to 10 and 12% run more than 10. In addition, one in four security alerts are useless, though some MSPs said as many as 70% of alerts are false alarms.
Liquid Web Weighs In
More recently, Liquid Web this week
released its own survey of 600 IT professionals that found most rely heavily on their server dashboards alerting them to potential incidents, but that their obsession comes with downsides, from dashboard fatigue to anxiety to disruptions in their personal lives.
About 48% said they log into their server dashboards multiple times a day, a third said they can’t relax if they don’t check their dashboards at least once every hour, and 51% check their dashboards during nights, weekends, or vacations.
“The study confirms what many of us in security already know: dashboards remain indispensable for real-time monitoring, yet they create stress, distraction, and even burnout,” Liquid Web CTO
Ryan MacDonald told MSSP Alert. “With 59% of IT pros saying past outages made them obsessive about dashboard checks, the industry must balance visibility with usability.”
For MSSPs, It's About Scale
MSSPs face the same challenges – such as
dashboard fatigue and poor user experience – that security teams with organizations do. The difference for them is scale, MacDonald said.
“Unlike in-house teams, MSSPs must provide centralized, multi-tenant visibility and switch between clients instantly” he said. “Any inefficiency multiplies, making design and responsiveness critical. A dashboard that frustrates analysts can erode client trust in minutes.”
The tools and dashboards that were developed to deliver actionable intelligence, make IT professionals’ lives easier, and give them greater peace of mind are making them more anxious and feeling overwhelmed.
Obsessive and Anxious
The survey found that 59% of respondents said that past outages have made them more obsessive about checking their dashboards – even when there’s nothing going on – and about 30% said their organizations sustained downtimes because they didn’t review their dashboards during the time when they could’ve taken action.
Many also said it was difficult finding information when trying to correlate information from multiple sources and services – particularly in noisy environments – and that some downtimes didn’t trigger alerts. Some also talked about the time spent putting together complex systems and workflows.
AI to the Rescue
That said, many of those surveyed believed that AI could improve the situation. More than half (54%) stated that AI-generated summaries would save them time, 53% said it would help speed up incident response, 35% said it would reduce stress, and 29% said it would improve team collaboration.
In addition, 26% said AI-based server management would make them more confident when handling incidents.
Survey respondents gave mixed answers when asked if they trust AI-generated summaries over a human technician’s analysis. 34% percent said they would, 27% said they wouldn’t, and 39% said they weren’t sure.
“The AI findings mirror the cautious optimism I hear across SOC teams,” MacDonald said. “There's genuine excitement around AI’s ability to cut through alert noise and summarize logs. But there’s also hesitation due to trust and control.”
A Pivotal Shift
He called the one-third of respondents who trust an AI-generated summary more than a human a pivotal signal of shifting trust in automation. He said this shows that AI is no longer just a noise filter but a partner in decision-making - if teams build in trust and transparency.”
AI will be important for MSSPs, who the CTO said “are on the frontlines of alert overload. Managing multiple client environments means inefficiencies scale quickly. AI-powered summaries and predictive alerts are no longer optional; they’re the baseline. Without them, analysts risk burnout and clients risk exposure to real threats.”
In a forward-looking statement at the end of the report, MacDonald said the “next generation of dashboards won’t just monitor infrastructure, they’ll restore control. If your UI causes friction, you risk losing your customers.”
Given that, “dashboard design should no longer be an afterthought. Forward-looking companies must prioritize UX, unified views, and AI to boost confidence and reduce noise,” he said.
