At the Cisco Live EMEA event, the excitement was palpable as regional leaders put the spotlight on artificial intelligence. EMEA president Oliver Tuszik kicked off the keynote by reflecting on Cisco’s journey over the past 40 years. He reminded us how it all started with the simple goal of connecting two networks and has evolved into a foundation for modern organizations.
In just a few years, the pace of innovation has surged, and analysts at Gartner forecast a nearly 11% growth for Cisco in the region this year. Tuszik believes this growth won’t just come from renewed spending after a slowdown but also from companies evolving into tech-driven enterprises themselves.
“I’m confident we can tackle the challenges and embrace the disruptions ahead,” he said, highlighting Cisco’s wealth of experience as a guiding force. He emphasized that Cisco stands ready to support customers navigating significant changes across industries. Whether it’s adapting to new workplace dynamics, leveraging AI in data infrastructure, or ensuring digital resilience, Cisco has a range of solutions tailored to tackle these pressing issues.
A study commissioned by Cisco revealed that 85% of customers felt they “needed” to adopt AI in the next 18 months, but only a small fraction—12% globally and 7% in Europe—felt prepared. The research pointed to skill gaps, limitations in current network infrastructure, and security concerns as barriers to adoption.
Cisco is determined to address these challenges, and this commitment fueled the excitement of 17,000 attendees at the RAI conference center.
Key product announcements focused on AI infrastructure and data center solutions for enterprises and service providers. They unveiled the Cisco N9300 Smart Switches equipped with Hypershield network security to enhance AI architectures. The Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall offers a robust security framework to ensure zero-trust segmentation and protect against application vulnerabilities. For service providers, the Cisco Agile Services Networking architecture enables AI connectivity, supported by advanced platforms and management tools. Lastly, they introduced the Nvidia MGX-powered Cisco UCS C845A M8 server, built to handle the compute demands of emerging AI applications.
Cisco also enhanced its zero-trust network access model with hybrid private access features and expanded its Wi-Fi 7 access point lineup for small to mid-sized deployments. The Webex platform saw new capabilities too, with an AI assistant added to the Contact Center and improved support for BYOD.
On the security front, Cisco announced new traffic insights for Cisco ThousandEyes and several integrations with its recent acquisition, Splunk.