This post was originally published on Network Computing
AI at Cisco Live 2025 felt a bit like glitter at a kid’s birthday party — everywhere, sparkly and impossible to ignore.
From the moment you landed in San Diego, you couldn’t swing a lanyard without hitting a session titled “AI-powered something.” Out of more than 1,700 sessions and demos, over 650 had “AI” in the title.
Yet, beyond the buzzword bingo, something real is happening.
To make sense of it all, I find it helpful to divide the AI conversation in networking into two buckets:
AI for your network. When AI helps you manage and troubleshoot smarter.
Your network for AI. When your infrastructure becomes the backbone for real-time, data-hungry AI workloads.
Let’s dig into both and figure out what’s real, what’s useful and what still needs to grow up a little.
AI for Your Network
In this scenario, AI becomes your assistant. It helps with troubleshooting, automating repetitive tasks and giving your teams the insights they need — faster and with less manual effort.
Smarter operations
Modern networking platforms are increasingly integrating AI-powered assistants and automation frameworks. These aren’t just glorified chatbots — they’re trained on years of telemetry, support cases and best
— Read the rest of this post, which was originally published on Network Computing.
