IT teams are prioritizing AI-driven network management when choosing Wi-Fi vendors, looking for features such as automated troubleshooting, anomaly detection, and guided remediation.
Wi-Fi is emerging as a strategic connectivity technology rather than just a backup alternative to wired networks, and that shift is driving enterprises to upgrade their Wi-Fi networks to keep up with an increasingly mobile workforce and rising bandwidth demands.
The pandemic created a mismatch between what employees need and expect from office networks and what the current infrastructure can deliver, according to Shamus McGillicuddy, research director for the network management practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), who shared new survey findings during a recent webinar.
When offices emptied in 2020, employees were mainly tethered to desks with Ethernet connections. Wi-Fi served as a backup or as a convenience for guests, but employees who returned in 2022 and 2023 had different expectations. “Maybe before they left the office, the Wi-Fi network was secondary to wired connections, with everyone tethered to their desk. People came back in the office and wanted to use the network in very different ways,” McGillicuddy said.
A majority of organizations (77%) surveyed support hybrid work, and this shift has transformed how people use office space—and Wi-Fi networks.
EMA’s research found that just 46.7% of IT professionals think their organization’s current approach to Wi-Fi networking is a complete success. The top challenge in Wi-Fi management is identifying rising user expectations, according to 41.4% of respondents.
Nearly 60% of the organizations plan to upgrade their Wi-Fi networks within the next 12 months, with 96% planning upgrades within two years. Enterprises are planning upgrades from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 7, and nearly 60% intend to initiate network upgrades within the next year, with most organizations aiming to benefit from Wi-Fi 7’s advanced capabilities within two years. According to the respondents, the most common factors driving these network updates are:
- Performance requirements (reduced latency, jitter, packet drops): 67.1%
- Increased bandwidth consumption: 59.9%
- User mobility (roaming, broader coverage): 53.3%
- Connectivity for operational technology (industrial systems, medical imaging, video surveillance): 50.0%
- Return-to-office policies driving up office occupancy: 48.7%
- Density requirements (users congregating): 44.7%
- End-of-life network equipment: 40.8%
- Need for location-based services: 40.1%
“End-of-life equipment is not the huge driver you’d think,” McGillicuddy said. Instead, he said the research shows that the upgrades are driven by fundamental changes in how networks are being used.
Among the trends that are reshaping Wi-Fi requirements is hybrid work—managing both remote and on-premises access creates complexity. In addition, collaborative space usage and a shift from assigned desks has led to employees working from myriad building locations, requiring enterprises to rethink network coverage and roaming capabilities.
The applications and devices in use today are also impacting Wi-Fi design choices. Bandwidth-intensive applications, such as real-time video and collaboration, are highly sensitive to network conditions. And employees are connecting not only laptops but also smartphones, wearables, and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices, which can increase concurrent connections and coverage demands.
Unified network access and security
On the security front, enterprises are prioritizing unified solutions for on-premises and remote access, focusing on stronger, more flexible security to support zero-trust environments, according to EMA.
“Security is always top of mind for networking teams,” McGillicuddy said. “Despite the fact that it’s the cybersecurity team that gets all the credit for security, the enterprise network team is often responsible for rolling out a secure infrastructure.”
Hybrid work has revealed that organizations often manage on-premises access and remote access through separate, siloed technologies, according to McGillicuddy. The research found that 100% of IT professionals surveyed want a unified platform for both. EMA survey respondents shared that they believe the benefits of universal network access management are:
- Reduced security risk: 36%
- Better NetOps and SecOps collaboration: 36%
- Reduced management complexity: 36%
- Increased architectural flexibility: 36%
- Improved user experience: 33%
- Cost savings: 24%
“They’re not looking to save money by consolidating technologies,” McGillicuddy explained. “It’s really about operating better, reducing security risk, improving the way people work, and reducing complexity.”
Enterprises want cloud-managed and AI-managed Wi-Fi
Cloud-managed networking represents a pivotal shift in how enterprises deploy, scale, and maintain their Wi-Fi infrastructure, according to EMA.
Three-quarters of enterprises surveyed want cloud-managed networking, the survey found, with 35% choosing pure SaaS and 40% wanting self-managed tools in the public cloud. Just 22% indicated they would prefer on-premises tools for Wi-Fi network management. The drivers for cloud-managed Wi-Fi include faster access to new features, tool reliability and availability, and ease of use, among others.
“Another piece is this shift toward cloud-managed networking that’s everywhere at this point. It’s something you want to think about as you’re switching and building a new Wi-Fi network,” McGillicuddy said.
He added that enterprise organizations are also increasingly prioritizing AI-driven network management when choosing Wi-Fi vendors, looking for features such as automated troubleshooting, anomaly detection, predictive problem prevention, and guided remediation. Respondents to the EMA survey identified the top use cases for AI in Wi-Fi as: network troubleshooting (51%), fault and performance monitoring (50%), and security incident response (50%).
As organizations prepare for this network transformation, EMA’s McGillicuddy says that the most successful will be those that recognize Wi-Fi adoption isn’t just about faster speeds—it’s about rethinking how wireless infrastructure serves a workforce that’s more mobile and distributed.
“The network that you are replacing will look a lot different from the network that you build,” McGillicuddy emphasized. “That’s unquestioned.”
EMA surveyed 152 Wi-Fi experts and decision makers to learn more about how enterprises are utilizing Wi-Fi to support end-user demand. The research was sponsored by Extreme Networks.
