Cisco Powers Secure Infrastructure for the AI Era

Cisco has unveiled new innovations to help companies adapt and transform in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era. Enterprises are under pressure to accelerate secure AI adoption and drive value from AI investments. To help organisations meet these opportunities, the company continues to reimagine the data centres and workplaces of the future.

“Cisco is delivering the critical infrastructure for the AI era—secure networks and experiences, optimised for AI that connect the world and power the global economy,” said Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco. “We’re witnessing an unprecedented surge in innovation as organisations embrace agentic AI to automate workflows and solve complex problems. Cisco has a rich history of helping companies run their infrastructure; today, we’re building on that foundation to power the next generation of AI.”

Patrick Milligan, Chief Information Security Officer at Ford Motor Company, noted, “Agentic AI is being used across Ford’s business, from design to engineering to manufacturing and for customer support.  As we build, deploy, and manage sophisticated AI capabilities at scale, Cisco’s networking and security solutions are an important part of the overall technology infrastructure.”

Cisco Unveils Critical Innovations

At Cisco Live, the company unveiled a wide range of new products and enhancements to help customers navigate the shift to agentic AI, including:

• Workplaces for the age of AI: Creating an intelligent workplace relies on modern network infrastructure that adapts to increased traffic, ensures always-on access, and delivers robust security. Meanwhile, organisations must empower people to work smarter and more effectively than ever. To meet these demands, the company announced new devices to power campus, branch, and industrial networks, and AI-powered unified management to help organisations move past reactive workflows to conducting autonomous, proactive network management. Additionally, the AI-powered Room Vision PTZ camera transforms meetings for a more cinematic experience. The Jira Workflow Automation in the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Suite boosts eHiciency, while the Webex AI Agent streamlines customer self-service with industry-specific templates. (Read more here: The AI-Ready Enterprise: Building the Intelligent Workplace with Cisco.)
• Simplified Operations for the age of AI with AgenticOps: The company is unveiling multiple AI-driven solutions to empower IT teams with simplicity, and automation, including Cisco AI Canvas, an industry-first generative user interface for real-time collaboration between network and security operations teams, and the Cisco AI Assistant, which provides conversational control across the Cisco suite. Core to the new capabilities is Cisco’s Deep Network Model—a domain-specific LLM trained on Cisco’s vast knowledge base, including Cisco U. courseware and Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) materials. The result is AI that understands networks and helps IT teams work more efficiently. (Read more here: Welcome to the Agentic Era: People + Agents Achieving More, Together.)
• Data Centres for the age of AI: Cisco unveiled continued innovationin its compute and network solutions for data centres to support agentic AI, which places a premium on network bandwidth, latency, and power efficiency. To help drive adoption of AI solutions to strengthen the power grid, Cisco is joining the EPRI Open Power AI Consortium. Additionally, the company is introducing new capabilities to assist service providers to deliver and monetise new AI services. (Read more here: Expanding the Edge of Possibility: Cisco Agile Services Networking for the AI Era.)
• Security for the age of AI: Robust security has never been more critical, as enterprises navigate the complexity of a growing number of applications, a highly distributed and mobile workforce, and sophisticated AI-driven threats. Cisco is introducing innovations across its Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) offerings; announced two new Firewalls, the 6100 series and 200 series, providing customers with best-in-class price performance; and unveiled capabilities across the Cisco Security Cloud to help customers meet the challenges of securing agentic AI. (Read more here: Making Agentic AI Work in the Real Worldand Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall: Better Enforcement Points, Smarter Segmentation, and Multi-Vendor Policy.)
• Digital Resilience at the Core: Several AI innovations, including enhanced capabilities in Splunk Observability Cloud and Splunk AppDynamics, along with deeper integrations between Cisco and Splunk solutions, are helping customers gain greater visibility into network health and performance. Key updates include a bidirectional integrationbetween Splunk Observability, Cisco ThousandEyes Assurance and Cisco Enterprise Networks, enabling more resilient, insight-driven digital operations. (Read more here: Cisco and Splunk Strengthen Enterprise Digital Resilience in the AI Era.)
• Unified Management for the age of AI: The company is previewing Cisco Cloud Control, a new unified management platform spanning the tech leader’s networking, security, and observability portfolios. Cisco Cloud Control will other a cohesive experience anchored by AI native tools like Cisco AI Canvas, and the Cisco AI Assistant. With Cisco Cloud Control IT will be able to execute cross-product workflows, proactively identify and resolve issues, and manage infrastructure with ease.