Beyond the Noise: Cisco's Intentional AI for a Future-Proofed, Connected World

The world is in the throes of an AI revolution. Headlines light up daily with breakthroughs, unveiling new models and bold promises. Just this month, major announcements and global debates have taken center stage; from leaders shaping AI policy to visionaries unveiling the next evolution of intelligent systems. Leaders everywhere feel both excitement and unease: this is a moment of unprecedented acceleration, but also of growing uncertainty.

Inside organizations, that tension is real. Executives are under pressure to prove value from AI investments. Employees are drowning in tools that don’t work together. IT teams are fighting a rising tide of synthetic voices, deepfakes, and fragmented data. AI was supposed to simplify work, but for many, it’s only added to the noise.

This escalating complexity and “noise” aren’t abstract concepts; they represent a fundamental reshaping of the enterprise. The most profound impact of this AI-driven era will be felt across every dimension of organizational capability – from the foundational architecture of Technologyand the imperative of robust Security to the intricate orchestration of Operations and the paramount importance of the People experience. These aren’t merely challenges to be managed, but strategic imperatives that demand a unified, intentional approach to harness AI’s true potential.

It’s fundamentally these critical areas of impact that inform our approach. At Cisco, we see it differently, because hope is not a strategy. The future of AI cannot be improvised; it must be shaped with intention and purpose. We’ve designed a precisely composed plate of AI: intentional, and built to solve real-world challenges, not a chaotic AI stew, a disconnected mix of tools, fragmented strategies, and siloed data. Built with purpose, clarity, and foresight; our approach is grounded in three connected layers:

• AI at the Edge → bringing intelligence directly into the room for lifelike, human experiences.
• AI in the Cloud → orchestrating conversations into insights and workflows that flow naturally.
• AI in Control → embedding trust, governance, and security at scale.

Together, these layers deliver what we call Connected Intelligence — AI that powers people, places, and platforms, where information flows securely, experiences are seamless, and collaboration becomes profoundly human again. This is how we move beyond the noise. This is how organizations can prepare for the future without waiting for it. With Cisco, every layer of AI is designed to work together, creating workplaces that are intentional, intuitive, and secure.

AI at the Edge: More Human

Collaboration is a human act. We want to see, hear, and understand each other as if we were in the same room, but hybrid work introduces friction: lagging video, muffled audio, and distracting environments. AI at the Edge erases that friction.

Cisco devices, powered by NVIDIA bring intelligence directly to the room:

• RoomOS 26 is the next evolution of our cloud-based operating system delivering the most advanced AI-native experiences, improved interoperability, and an intelligent workspace experience platform that enhances how people connect, create, and collaborate.
• Dynamic Mode for Cinematic Meetings keeps participants framed and in focus with zero effort; leveraging the full suite of tools in our camera intelligence toolbox. Dynamic Mode uses our agentic Director to decide on the best camera view – automatically predicting and adapting.
• Audio Zones enable IT to digitally define specific areas of the meeting space to be excluded from adaptive ceiling microphone pickup, enhancing meeting quality and filtering distractions so voices are clear and natural.

And we’re pushing forward. With AI Notes, we’re exploring in-person transcription and real-time context capture that will dissolve barriers between physical and digital work.

AI in the Cloud: More Intuitive

While the Edge perfects the moment, the Cloud extends its impact. Conversations don’t end when the meeting does, they become the blueprint for progress. In a world where work demands agility, true collaboration means that ideas effortlessly evolve into actions, insights and outcomes.

With AI in the Cloud, every interaction is captured, contextualized, and transformed into forward momentum. Knowledge is no longer siloed or lost, it’s woven into your organization’s fabric, ready to spark the next breakthrough. This is collaboration that transcends boundaries, scales with your ambition, and ensures that progress doesn’t pause when the meeting ends, because with Cisco, every conversation is just the beginning.

And now, we’re bringing this vision to life with a new wave of AI-powered innovations:

• The new Task Agent in the Webex app captures your action items automatically, with AI helping you complete them, such as updating a Jira ticket or scheduling a meeting. New search capabilities allow you to search across meeting and message in Webex with AI Assistant, and across enterprise apps you use everyday like Amazon Q, CoPilot and Glean.
• Our expanded partnerships with Salesforce, Jira and more enables users to create to automate workflows and ask AI Assistant to take action on their behalf. For example, creating, updating or closing tickets in Jira, creating a new lead or update and existing one within Salesforce all from with AI Assistant panel in the Webex app.
• Following the widespread adoption of meeting rooms and training spaces, we are excited to announce that Workspace Designer now allows you to model and configure standalone desk, open desk, and focus room scenarios with webcams, desk phones, headsets, and all-in-one desk collaboration devices, speeding up the planning of flexible, AI-driven desk workspaces at scale.

AI in Control: More Secure

AI without trust is a liability. In an era defined by the rise of deepfakes, synthetic voices, and sophisticated cyber threats, establishing unwavering trust is non-negotiable. This demands not just a robust security foundation, but also comprehensive control, seamless scalability, and meticulous management of the entire network infrastructure underpinning every AI interaction.

Cisco embeds security and manageability at scale into every layer:

• Control Hub with AI Canvas provides IT insights and collaborative management on a single pane of glass. 
• Network Aware Rooms: Catalyst 9200CX Switches now uniquely integrate with Cisco room devices and AVoIP accessories to help you flexibly scale and manage IP-connected Cisco room peripherals over the network, while also making the switches visible in Control Hub for full-scale visibility for IT and AV teams.
• GetReal, and Pindrop partnerships bring real-time threat detection by identifying synthetic voices, AI-generated avatars, and face swaps in meetings and calls.
• Desk Phone 9811: The Desk Phone 9800 Series delivers secure, AI-enhanced calling with advanced encryption and intelligent threat protection, ensuring trusted conversations wherever you work. The series now expands with the new Desk Phone 9811 model, continuing to combine control and security seamlessly.

Here too, our Workspace Advisor is purpose-built to give IT leaders unprecedented visibility and control. Powered by NVIDIA compute, Workspace Advisor creates a digital twin of your meeting room—right inside Control Hub. This digital twin empowers IT teams to simulate configurations, proactively determine the placement of devices with accurate measurements, and scale smarter, making operations as dynamic as the workplaces they support.

This is Connected Intelligence in action, where every conversation, no matter where it starts, feeds into the bigger picture. It’s about turning everyday chats into coordinated workflows and making sure the right context follows your people and spaces, staying relevant and ready to drive what’s next.

The NVIDIA and Microsoft Partnership: Future Forged Together 

Ten years into our partnership with NVIDIA, we’re not just celebrating milestones, we’re shaping the future of collaboration.

Together with Microsoft, we’re stepping up to deliver the Microsoft Development Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) on our next-generation devices. While others hesitate, we’re all-in—engineering a unified, secure platform that’s purpose-built for seamless Teams Rooms experiences and ready to accelerate your digital workplace.

It’s not only about protecting your investment, but also about amplifying it. By uniting the power of NVIDIA chipsets, Cisco’s trusted hardware, and Microsoft’s platform, we’re future-proofing your spaces and unlocking new outcomes for every team, everywhere. The next era of intelligent, inclusive meetings is here, and we’re building it with you.

Connected Intelligence at Work

Connected Intelligence is more than a strategy. It’s the choice that separates clarity from chaos, outcomes from experiments, leadership from hesitation. With Cisco AI at the Edge, in the Cloud, and in Control, every element of the workplace is designed with intention, putting people at the center, making places adaptive, and ensuring platforms are secure and scalable.

The AI revolution is already here. The future of work won’t be built on experiments or noise. It will be built on intentional AI that connects intelligence across every layer of your business.

At Webex One, we showed what it means to move beyond headlines, the noise, the hype, the uncertainty and step into a future that’s purpose built for clarity, connection and confidence. This is the promise of Connected Intelligence: that connects people to people, people to AI, AI to AI globally, and preparing you for what comes next.

With Cisco, the path forward is clear. The future is connected and Connected Intelligence is ready now.

Learn more:

WebexOne 2025: Unlocking the Power of Connected Intelligence