The evolution of artificial intelligence is forcing technology giants to redefine how they manage complex network infrastructure and defend against cyber threats.
Cisco is responding to these challenges with the release of Cisco Cloud Control, a unified platform that introduces the AgenticOps operating model. Instead of traditional passive automation, the new solution relies on direct and peer-to-peer collaboration between IT teams and autonomous AI agents in a single, integrated operational environment.
“AI agents reason and act constantly at the speed of software, and this changes everything about how we scale, manage and protect critical infrastructure,” – Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco, said. “Cisco Cloud Control is the command centre for agent AI: a platform where your team and your AI agents work together, in the same environment, with the same information and with full human control.”
For enterprises grappling with the growing complexity of hybrid clouds, this is a significant strategic shift. Cisco Cloud Control integrates previously dispersed data from networks, security and monitoring systems, offering the same operational context to both engineers and machines. The platform eliminates technology silos by offering native connections to ecosystem partners such as AWS, Microsoft, ServiceNow and Google Cloud. A key component of the deployment becomes Cloud Control Studio, enabling users to build their own applications and agents using natural language. According to company executives, the aim is to enable the orchestration of critical resources at the speed of the software itself.
Digital immune system and frontier AI
Cisco’s ambitions go beyond day-to-day network management, however. With the time between vulnerability detection and attempted exploitation drastically reduced, the company is betting on proactive defence. The new Live Protect feature acts as a digital immune system, protecting devices such as Nexus 9000 switches from critical threats in real time – without the need for reboots or scheduled maintenance windows. As part of the development of these systems, Cisco is working directly with frontier AI market leaders, testing its products at Anthropic’s Project Glasswing and OpenAI Daybreak.
Preparing for the post-quantum era
An equally important step is to try to neutralise the risks associated with the advent of the post-quantum era. Responding to the ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ threat, Cisco is introducing a default secure start-up resistant to quantum computing in its new series of devices and is declaring quantum security for the majority of its portfolio by December 2026.
Completing the ecosystem is the updated Cisco IQ analytics platform with Peer Benchmarking, allowing companies to anonymously benchmark their own risk metrics against market competitors. The global availability of Cisco Cloud Control scheduled for July this year will show whether the traditional infrastructure giant will be able to successfully dictate the pace in a world dominated by a new wave of AI start-ups.
