With Cisco’s share price riding the AI wave to new all-time highs, it’s clear the company has been effective at positioning itself for growth and success in the AI era. What’s next?
Cisco is ready for the agentic AI era, with a portfolio that spans networking infrastructure, cybersecurity, observability, and collaboration tools. It’s more diverse than some direct AI plays, and it now has the benefit of an enterprise networking refresh cycle, which enjoys the tailwind of AI but is not dependent on it.
This was reflected well at the Cisco Live conference last week, as Cisco executives framed launches of new AI infrastructure products as a demonstration of the company’s successful transformation. At the same time, leaders outlined cautions about the AI boom, saying the company has positioned itself to survive any outcome.
Cloud Control Drives Integration
At Cisco Live in Las Vegas, the launches included Cisco Cloud Control, a centralized, AI-enabled management platform for all Cisco products and services that serves as the linchpin of the new strategy. This is a big step to solving many challenges Cisco has had in integrating its wide portfolio of products, acquired through dozens of acquisitions over many years.
Cloud Control includes AI Canvas, which manages agentic operations across the network, as well as Control Studio, a toolkit for building custom AI agents. Another service, Live Protect, autonomously protects network software vulnerabilities in real time, without shutting down or upgrading hardware and software.
Cisco IQ now includes Quantum-ready assessments, with Cisco saying it has committed to full quantum-safe capabilities “across the majority of Cisco’s core portfolio by December 2026.”
Focusing on Critical Infrastructure for AI
Two years ago, addressing some of the challenges my firm Futuriom identified in published research, Cisco Chuck Robbins and new President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel vowed to transform the company, injecting it with new blood and new products. The company underwent a massive overhaul, in which much of the senior leadership was replaced.
Fast forward to today, and it’s clear that change was effective. Cisco recently printed its best results in years, raised 2026 fiscal-year guidance for 14% growth, and is achieving record profits.
At Cisco Live this year, executives repeated the corporate mantra of “critical infrastructure for AI,” which was merely a dream two years ago, when Cisco’s stock was stuck in a rut. At the time, it was largely viewed as a sleepy networking company for enterprise. Now it’s positioned as a key player in AI and security.
“It’s gratifying to see that Cisco has gotten its spring back in its step,” said Patel at Cisco Live. “There is no doubt that we are up-tempo and we have momentum. We are squarely in the middle of a networking supercycle at this point.”
CEO Robbins, once rumored to be considering retirement, has a new swagger in his step (as well as some shiny loafers).
In an executive Q&A with press and analysts, Robbins took on AI bubble fears head on, citing the AI opportunity as too large to pass up. “FOMO is real,” said Robbins.
“The risk of not doing it is much greater,” Robbins said. “We’ll adapt our strategy as needed. Most CEOs are going to feel that way. The fear of my competitors moving ahead of me by taking more risk than me is at the heart of the discussions.”
Building Out the AI Stack
On the product front, Cisco made a compelling case that it does indeed have the critical infrastructure for AI. The new shiny object in AI infrastructure is “full stack,” and Cisco has all the necessary components with networking, compute (including custom silicon), optics, observability, and cybersecurity software. Its partnership with Nvidia enables it to put together some of the most cutting-edge AI reference designs in the industry.
New customer-centric products such as Cisco IQ and Cisco Cloud Control leverage AI to streamline operations and provide deep integration with data from Cisco’s portfolio, which now includes products ranging from campus and AI networking to cybersecurity and data analytics.
Splunk, Cisco’s $28 billion acquisition in 2023, is now being leveraged across the portfolio for both customer services as well as internal use. Cisco uses Splunk as an observability and security tool that can aggregate telemetry across infrastructure. Cisco says it has used Splunk to reduce major incidents by 25% and lower Mean Time to Detect (MTTD).
In corporate presentations, Robbins has pounded away at the integrated stack theme, citing the difficulty that customers are having deploying infrastructure for AI. This customer base extends from enterprises of all sizes all the way up to the largest hyperscalers, where Cisco has renewed selling momentum.
Cisco holds a unique position in owning many parts of the infrastructure stack, including optics, which have become a particularly challenging component to both acquire and operate. Robbins says Cisco’s role in packaging up reliable infrastructure for customers has grown as AI complexity rises.
“Every customer has told me they want to reduce strategic partners to move faster,” said Robbins. “Customers are increasingly not interested in piece parts. They don’t want to be a systems integrator.
Cloud Control Solves Integration Challenges
Of all the new products, Cisco Cloud Control and Cisco IQ show Cisco’s push to transform the company by making its products more user-friendly, or as Patel said, enabling it to “focus on delighting the users.”
Cloud Control helps solve a long-term challenge of managing Cisco’s diverse products by merging support and management tools into a single, AI-driven portal. Cisco Cloud Control can now manage nearly all Cisco infrastructure products, ranging from Nexus switches to Meraki campus products.
Robbins and Patel both cited agentic AI as introducing a huge wave of change for the company, which can leverage its pervasive market presence to help customers with cybersecurity and automation.
Cisco is also integrating its observability and telemetry assets, such as Splunk and Thousand Eyes, to drive agentic infrastructure operations, using reasoning based on telemetry and historical data. As Futuriom described in this Tech Primer, using telemetry to drive reasoning and action is the next step in agentic infrastructure operations.
According to Cisco executives, Cloud Control is the result of Cisco-specific customization of LLMs to learn from Cisco’s vast trove of infrastructure data. The Deep Network Model is based on 40 years of Cisco operational data. Operators can work with autonomous agents to spot trouble, identify causes, implement fixes, and test changes before deployment.
As expressed by Patel, implementing Cisco Cloud Control was a management challenge. Patel said it wasn’t easy forcing many divisions to break down their silos. It required transmitting a new mindset across the organization: Everything in Cisco, including diverse operating platforms, must now be managed through Cisco Cloud Control.
Overall, Cisco Live launches and presentations reflected meaningful work that Cisco has done over the past two years to position the company for the next era of growth. At the same time, for investors, Cisco’s diversified enterprise and communications base make it one of the safer bets on AI infrastructure.
Futuriom provides paid research and marketing services to technology companies, with the goal of providing accurate insight into how cloud and AI infrastructure markets are evolving. These services include subscription research, custom research, and report sponsorships. In the past twelve months, Cisco has purchased research services from Futuriom. As a policy, the author holds no positions in individual technology stocks covered in articles, including Cisco.
