Cisco has introduced a major new platform designed to support the next wave of artificial intelligence adoption across enterprises operating at the edge of their networks. The company announced Cisco Unified Edge, a fully integrated system that combines computing power, networking, data storage and built in security in locations where data is created and decisions must be made instantly. The goal is to allow real time AI inferencing and the rise of intelligent agents on site in places such as hospitals, retail stores, industrial facilities and other distributed environments.
The launch arrives at a moment when many companies are struggling to move beyond experimental AI projects. Cisco points to industry estimates that more than half of ongoing AI pilot programs are failing to scale because of infrastructure limitations. A growing share of enterprise information is now generated outside traditional data centers, and analysts expect that around 75 percent of all enterprise data this year will be created and processed in edge environments. As a result, conventional central computing locations are having difficulty supporting the nonstop and intensive traffic generated by AI driven systems. Cisco notes that intelligent agent queries can create up to twenty five times more activity on a network than a regular chatbot interaction, making it necessary for AI capabilities to be much closer to the actual data source.
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Jeetu Patel, who serves as President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco, said that the networking industry must change for AI to reach its full potential. He stated that “Today’s infrastructure can’t meet the demands of powering AI at scale. As AI agents and experiences proliferate, they will naturally emerge closer to where customers interact and decisions are made the branch office, retail store, factory floor, stadium, and more. That is where compute needs to live. With our Unified Edge we are making it easier to power AI in the real world with flexible, secure systems that are simple to deploy, operate, and scale as demand grows.”
Cisco says the platform is built to support both existing business applications and future AI capabilities without requiring companies to replace systems every time capacity needs change. Unified Edge offers standardized deployment models intended to simplify rollouts of new AI tools. Cisco is also integrating its software for centralized device management along with the insights available from Splunk and ThousandEyes to give organizations a complete view of performance. Security remains central to the offering, with protection controlled from the hardware level through access and policy management to reduce risks in widely distributed environments.
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The company developed the platform in close partnership with customers in major industries including finance, manufacturing and healthcare. The result is technology that can deliver immediate decision making where it matters most, whether supporting factory equipment on a production floor or enhancing digital services inside a bank branch. Cisco also highlighted the importance of partners in delivering these solutions, saying that the company is working closely with service providers and technology partners to bring new AI capabilities to market and ensure customers have freedom and flexibility as their infrastructure evolves.
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