“Every innovation that ever existed in the world was at some point considered impossible,” observed Cisco’s Dave West, “until someone said, ‘let's go!’ ” 

Speaking at a Cisco Live Melbourne keynote this week, West opened discussions on the once seemingly impossible innovations that Cisco is unleashing today. Designed with security, simplicity, and sustainability top of mind, these innovations span from networking and security to AI and quantum, to name but a few areas.

“We’re in a world that’s incredibly hyperconnected today,” said West, who is Cisco’s president for Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China (APJC). “There are 16 billion connected devices across the world, and that’s 16 billion places where you’ll need to onboard devices and make sure they’re secure. In around two and a half years, that number will grow to 29 billion connected devices. That’s 12 billion more devices that all of you will need to secure.” 

Cisco, West stressed, is committed to customers and partners on what looms as a challenging, yet transformational journey — for companies, customers, and the planet.  

“We set impossible goals,” he said, “and we try to achieve those goals, and that’s what Cisco is about. We want to help you transform your infrastructure and reimagine applications to power hybrid work. We want to make sure that all your connections are secure. And we want to help you on your journey to sustainability.” 

“We’re excited to be with you on this incredible journey,” he added.  

 

Simplified, scalable, and secure 

Much of that support focuses on simplifying the most powerful technology. By automating and unifying the most complex processes, AI and Cisco’s platform strategy are making it happen. Because in a world of hyperconnectivity, hybrid work, multiple clouds, and expanded attack surfaces, IT teams are overwhelmed.  

“I love those three words, simple, secure, and scalable,” said Vikas Butaney, Cisco’s SVP and GM of SDWAN, multi-cloud networking, and industrial IoT. “It’s really at the heart of what our teams are working on, and it's central to our vision — to simplify networking everywhere for every customer at every scale.” 

The Cisco Security Cloud and Cisco Networking Cloud embody that vision. By seamlessly integrating multiple tools, they create powerful, end-to-end observability and control, while lessening the glut of vendors and point solutions complicating the lives of so many IT and security teams.  

Lawrence Huang, SVP and GM for Cisco networking experiences, Meraki and wireless, described the unified user experience the company is providing.  

“With Cisco Networking Cloud,” he explained, “you will be able to manage your networking footprint, Catalyst, Meraki, and ThousandEyes from one place. That’s one place from which to manage all of your networking products, deploy the updates, check the security alerts, check on the usage across your environments, and achieve so much more.” 

Security teams grapple with the same “tool glut.” As Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s EVP and GM for security and collaboration, explained, a typical security team has 50-70 security tools in their stack, many of which do not interoperate or “talk” to one another. The Cisco Security Cloud vastly simplifies this, by protecting users, muiltiple clouds, and mitigating a breach, should it occur.  

Patel called it “the best and most scalable platform that you will see out there, while making it really simple to use. And it'll be the highest amount of efficacy with the best experience and the best economics, because it’s provided to you as a suite.” 

Of course, Cisco’s massive investment and ongoing innovation in AI is paying off in products across the entire portfolio, including Security Cloud.  

“This looks very similar to Chat GPT,” Patel commented during a demo of the Security Cloud’s AI Assistant. “We have a natural language instructed interface for security, so that as you're managing your policies, you can just talk in plain English or type, ‘Hey, I need to update my firewall policy, or what policies are controlling my sales app right now?’ And it will respond.” 

 

Building a great customer experience — and a sustainable future 

Even with platform-based, AI-empowered solutions, transformation is hard. So, Jacqueline Guichelaar, SVP and GM of customer experience for Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China, explained the critical role that Cisco CX can play.  

“Everyone in the CX organization is completely obsessed with making you successful,” she stressed. “We can help you get to those business outcomes faster. Whatever your journey is, be it hybrid work, be it security, networking, observability, sustainability, anything, together with our partners, we can help you get there.” 

Guichelaar noted the acute need for organizations to set — and meet — sustainability goals. So, she was happy to announce an expanded role for Cisco CX in this area. 

“We are launching sustainability services which help you either assess and prioritize, reduce energy consumption or transform to smart buildings,” she said. “Because I know we can collectively build a better future for everyone that's connected and also good for the planet.” 

Denise Lee, VP of Cisco engineering sustainability office, added her own thoughts on innovation and sustainability, particularly the increasing role that AI can play in everything from smart buildings to managing data centers. 

“We are fundamentally writing new standards to get more accuracy in how we measure power,” she said, “and make that available to our customers so they can put some automation to it. And AI gives more intelligence, so that we humans can step away and we can let the machines do the work to optimize.”  

Lorissa Horton, VP and GM of Webex strategy and online business, explained how this kind of intelligence impacts Webex in a wide range of solutions, from real-time translation and transcriptions to post-meeting summaries and noise reduction. Among the most compelling is an AI Codec feature to compensate for poor audio quality or low video bandwidth. This will enable more people to connect, no matter their local conditions, while Webex Contact Center users can provide a great customer experience for all.  

“Packet loss leads to a poor experience,” she explained, “but with our new AI Codec, even with over 85 percent packet loss, will be able to give you crystal clear audio. This is really going to change how people are going to work, where they can work from and the quality of service that you can deliver to them.” 

Of course, innovative organizations never rest. Tim Szigeti, director of technical marketing for Outshift by Cisco, the company’s incubation engine, shared some highlights of recent their recent work. These include the Panoptica cloud application security system, expanded gen AI tools, and quantum networking.  

“We’re doing exciting research in quantum networking,” Szigeti shared. “This is a whole different way of looking at communications and networking that’s going to fundamentally change and evolve our entire industry.” 

Szigeti emphasized that like all Cisco innovations, quantum research is tied to solving real-world business challenges. “We incubate solutions to bring to the market,” he added.  

In concluding his keynote address, Dave West echoed that commitment. Addressing the thousands assembled in Melbourne, he said, “We are ready to support you today, and we’re ready to support you in the future.”