** Kubernetes continues to gain popularity as 70% of IT leaders use it, with plans to increase its use significantly in the next year. However, this complexity can lead to increased networking, security, and cost challenges. While automation can be a viable solution, not all teams may be ready for it immediately. Kubernetes offers great benefits, including increased developer productivity, but also adds to IT infrastructure complexity due to its architecture and frequent updates. Inadequate experience and expertise can lead to overprovisioning and cloud bill inflation. Poor adoption of Kubernetes practices can result in degraded high availability, making automation a more attractive solution. Automation is not always the best idea, as teams that are new to container technology or have just built their first cluster may not be ready for it. Telltale signs that a team should consider automating their cluster deployments include picking instances across regions being a nightmare, spot interruptions and shortages stopping cost savings, upgrading node lifecycle taking too much effort, rigid node pools causing pain, Kubernetes cluster cost management getting messy, sizing applications being a guessing game, and container security keeping them up at night. Automation can help address these issues, providing relief and savings.