Blog post
When we first launched Catchpoint’s Internet Resilience Report back in 2024, we were already seeing troubling cracks in the digital foundations of major businesses. Remember the CrowdStrike outage? Fast-forward to this year, and it's clear the stakes have only gotten higher. Google Cloud’s recent outage is yet another reminder of how tightly interwoven the Internet is and how all it takes is for one major player to go down, for thousands of businesses to be affected worldwide.
Having spent months diving deep into data from nearly 500 global business leaders, the 2025 edition of The Internet Resilience Report uncovers fascinating insights and trends that no one responsible for digital performance can afford to ignore.
Here’s what caught our attention, why it should matter to you, and what you should do about it.
5 Key takeaways from this year’s report
The data makes one thing explicit: performance now shares the same podium as availability. That shift is rewiring resilience strategies at the highest levels.
#1 Financial pain has escalated
Over half (51%) of companies now incure more than $1 million each month due to Internet disruptions. About 1 in 8 (12.5%) are seeing losses of more than $10 million per month. As the report says, “That’s not downtime. That’s Damage.”
#2 Fast performance is the new uptime
The emphasis on performance in this year’s report reflects a noticeable shift in how organizations perceive resilience: 73% of businesses now consider high-performing digital experiences as non-negotiable. Meanwhile, 42% went further, suggesting that if apps are slow, they might as well be down.
#3 AI has an observability problem
AI might be everyone's favorite buzzword, but our research showed a significant blind spot.
Over half (57%) of businesses recognize issues in their AI-driven applications immediately—but nearly half don’t have real-time visibility into AI performance at all.
#4 Third-party dependencies remain a critical risk
74% of businesses heavily depend on third-party providers, yet many continue to lack the visibility needed to manage these external risks effectively.
Third-party blind spots remain major vulnerabilities.
#5 Specialization matters
Generalist monitoring tools aren't cutting it anymore. 73% prefer specialized Internet Performance Monitoring tools for safeguarding digital experiences, rather than broad, less targeted tools.
Year-over year shifts that should raise your eyebrow
One of the unique benefits of running this report annually is seeing how the data evolves. Three clear trends emerged this year that I found particularly compelling:
- Impact is up: In 2024, 43% reported significant monthly financial impacts ($1M+). This year, that jumped to 51%. Clearly, resilience is no longer just about risk management—it’s central to business survival.
- Severity is up: The proportion of businesses suffering massive disruptions ($10M+) increased from 9% last year to around 12.5% this year. The severity is going up, and the stakes for getting resilience right are growing exponentially.
- Dependency is flat (but risky): Dependency on third parties remained consistently high (from 77% down slightly to 74%), underscoring the need for robust external monitoring.
These aren’t just spreadsheet deltas. The Google Cloud outage proved how an “invisible” dependency can torpedo customer experience without warning. Proactive, outside‑in monitoring and clear experience‑level objectives (XLOs) have never mattered more.
“The industry is waking up to a new reality: slow is the new down. Sluggish websites and applications don’t just frustrate users—they drain revenue and damage reputations.” Catchpoint CEO Mehdi Daoudi
Actionable recommendations from the report
The full report contains deeper insights and recommendations—but if you’re looking for a few high-impact steps to begin with, start here:
- Define clear Experience-Level Objectives (XLOs): Forget internal uptime targets alone. Define your metrics from your customers' experience. If your website feels slow, it might as well be dead to your users.
- Get serious about AI Observability: The report reveals that 57 % of companies detect AI failures immediately, yet the rest find out only when users complain. If AI runs critical parts of your business, ensure you can see problems immediately. Investing in best-of-breed monitoring solutions to ensure real-time visibility into AI performance isn't optional; it’s essential.
- Audit your top ten third‑party calls: With 74 % of leaders calling external services “highly or extremely critical,” know who you depend on. Inventory external APIs/CDNs and set a basic healthcheck for each dependency
What's next?
Download the full Internet Resilience Report 2025 to go deeper. Inside, you'll find industry benchmarks across performance, availability, and observability; real-world insights into what’s working (and what’s not); and recommendations to help your teams build resilience that’s measurable, testable, and ready for whatever breaks next.
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