I am seeing all sort of initiatives along this line, I am not sure if it is just managers trying to show how much they align with the latest buzzwords or it is a genuine and desperate search for ideas to make us competitive in this field.
It does sound and look like "when you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail"
AI is a bubble.
Nvidia is frantically selling shovels to the AI infrastructure goons
Oracle, Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft and Cisco are all in a circlej--kmeanwhile...
The consumer (and Cisco employees) are suffering. Auto repossessions reached a 15-year high in 2025 (over 2.2 million vehicles seized YTD through October). This is up 20-25% YoY and projected to exceed 3 million by year-end topping 2009 crisis peaks.
Credit card severe delinquency rate (60+ days) rose to 2.83% in September 2025 from 2.73% in August.
Buy now pay later (BNPL) show 41% users are in default.
Home foreclosures are up 20% YoY.
Tenant evictions are surging .
What does this mean for Cisco?
The consumer is in deep distress (reduced spending, layoffs, and recession risks) which indirectly pressures Cisco's corporate clients which will cut non-essential IT budgets by 5-10%
AI is the only thing holding cisco above the vat of oil
...it's hard to see where and how AI can be transformative, no matter what baloney and BS you tell the market.
It will be the next incomplete universal traffic management solution after the likes of ATM, MPLS and SDN.
I heard they are hiring a "Buzzwords Project Manager": leveraging the capitulation for synergy innovation - taking it offline.
Let’s not forget CX AMER leader, EK, as he’s desperate to show some value towards AI. Even created an AI group. The only thing he’s done right so far is get rid of his underqualified CTO Jokey Chowdog.
If I remember correctly, wasn’t it G2 who started in Webex? During one of the company meetings, he asked the Webex engineers to demonstrate his “innovations.” Later, he “revived” Webex and was promoted to Manager of Security. These days, I hardly see anyone outside of Cisco using Webex. Could the same thing happen with Cisco’s AI innovations?
That AT lady sounds like a broken trumpet, just a talking puppet, can't find any substance in anything she is saying, just slogans that I don't pay attention to, unlike CR or the wig lady, these last two are dangerous because they are the predictors our our potential or comming problems.
Didn't Zoom start the same way? Id--ts at Webex threw away the goose that lays the golden eggs?
120M wouldn’t even be worth scheduling a Webex for.
Yeah, this is the short-sighted thinking that kneecaps a company from within. Are you Cisco PM?
@pp 120M wouldn’t even be worth scheduling a Webex for.
We had two AI products that went on to be very successful money makers when the inventors left Cisco with the ideas and started competing companies. Even a TL from SBG produced a gem that's now in its series B stage and valued at $120M+. The trick is to remove inept, corrupt, bigoted leadership for it to succeed. It's comical how many smart people get COI signoff and then start a competing company when dum--ss leaders decide to try and sc--w over their top talent. Wonder how shareholders feel about Cisco financing its competition through sheer incompetence.
All for adopting AI at every level, but i love how some SBG directors are pushing for AI. Somehow they are experts in AI and adoption, but their direction is "use AI" to all manages. Pretty similar to their non existing non-AI strategy.
Let’s not forget about their “AI Solution” Service as Code which is basically CX figuring out how to use terraform years after everyone else to provision their own hardware. They’re marketing is in full effect for this BS.
@k2 typical scenario. LC, who happens to be Indian, always tend to surround herself with her home boys. She is the reason the clueless clown RK heads research in Outsh!t now. She put him up there when she was running ET&I. Clowns have taken over the circus. And these political elements never get LRed.
The CX CTO, CP, is a master of everything as is his leader LC who love to spew whatever script is in front of them. We also have the CX EMEA VP, AT, who has moved on from her role as sustainability champion to AI expert, to master of tagging the ELT on LinkedIn
I’ve seen some teams doing interesting things with AI, but the whole time in the back of my mind I keep thinking:
Yes, absolute desperation. What we’re witnessing isn’t innovation; it’s flailing. A training program cobbled together by contractors with zero background in curriculum development, guided by leadership who proudly proclaim they “start their day using AI to learn how to use AI.” It’s performative at best, delusional at worst.
The reality is that genuine AI capability requires structured discipline, cohesive process, and sustained learning — all of which this organization has neither invested in nor culturally enabled.
You can’t lift an entire company’s competence in AI when the industry has already sprinted several years ahead, especially when there’s no unified “One Cisco”, outside of a marketing motto, to execute or even understand the processes required for applied AI.
We’ve built a perfect storm: siloed teams, siloed codebases, entrenched middle management, favoritism baked into every org chart, and a carousel of reorganizations designed more to reshuffle accountability than improve delivery.
Add to that a dependency on contractors whose only vested interest is maximizing billable hours, all under leaders who lack even a conceptual grasp of the underlying technology or its workflows — and what you get isn’t progress. It’s futility.
Until we fix process, products, practices, and a centralized approach to AI development we’re not transforming — we’re pi----g in the wind and calling it our champagne shower. Just like the quality of the software developed internally. It’s pi-s.
you people have learned nothing....all you have to do is change the definition of words. If you simply decide that all software is now 'AI', you've instantly satisfied the AI requirement. Until next time...
AIdiotic Behavior
@d4 you’re forgetting the top component here and it’s a major one. Squirt all over your leadership team.
Burp the buzzword. Make pretty PowerPoints. Get promoted.
it's everywhere OP, not unique to Cisco
CP, our CTO EMEA, is now an expert on Agentic AI. Last week he was an expert on Quantum. He claims everything is now Agentic Quantum or Quantum Agents, can’t make up his frigging mind. There is only ONE thing that CP is confident about: Chamge is the only constant !
When 50% of your business is switching and routing - packet in, lookup, packet out - , it's hard to see where and how AI can be transformative, no matter what baloney and BS you tell the market.
Yeah if you’re in sales there used to be dashboard tool with various sales metrics that was absolutely awful to use. They then essentially remade it with an AI summary that can be hilariously wrong and just gives a summary of what’s on the screen not anything actionable. It feels half baked and that they’re slapping AI onto things without any strategic thinking almost for that team just to say “look at us we’re ai forward we contribute”
It’s one of those “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” situations and I feel like it’s happening a lot at Cisco