A new report by Sphera highlights the challenges companies are facing in 2025, including aging facilities, a less-experienced workforce and rising operational pressures.
“Today, the process safety industry stands at a crossroads. Aging infrastructure, workforce attrition and increasing operational complexity are pushing traditional safety solutions to their limits,” says Paul Marushka, Sphera’s CEO and president. “Our newest Process Safety Report shows that leadership in this area is more critical than ever. Leaders must move beyond endorsing safety initiatives to owning them, ensuring that digital systems and AI tools are being carefully embedded to support operational decision-making. Applied with discipline and oversight, AI can provide predictive insight, reduce data overload and play a pivotal role in overcoming these challenges.”
Key takeaways:
· A decade of benchmarking has shown steady technological progress, but limited impact with reducing the number of incidents. During this time, the market has seen shifts to cloud-based solutions and away from single-purpose applications towards connected platforms.
· 64% of the respondents say technology is already helping their business today, 33% see strong future potential. 47% are already using live risk data.
· 42% of the respondents are using or planning to use AI, with 24% improving safety programs and 29% connecting risk data across assets. Yet one in three organizations still lack in-house AI expertise.
· 55% of organizations use third-party solution providers for process safety management. These companies are also more advanced by using AI (52% compared to 29% managing safety in-house) and report greater confidence in risk management.
· The share of organizations who are “very confident” about reducing their exposure dropped from 35% in 2024 to 27% in 2025, while 9% still report no confidence at all.
