More than six years since the COVID pandemic forced a seismic shift in all things work, new disruptions continue to mount.

The latest change driver? AI (of course).

Webex by Cisco has been at the forefront of these transformations, enabling unprecedented levels of flexibility, security, and collaboration — from the office and the contact center to just about anywhere. And its leadership and innovation in the collaboration space is only accelerating in the AI era.

Among the premier collaboration-related events in the world, WebexOne is happening this year in Austin, Texas, Oct. 5-8. So, prior to his keynote address at the event, we tracked down Snorre Kjesbu, Cisco’s senior vice president and general manager of collaboration. He shared his thoughts on how Cisco continues to redefine, challenge, and expand our assumptions about work, along with a few hints on what to expect at WebexOne.

 

Thank you, Snorre! As we approach WebexOne, maybe we could start with a quick overview on the state of work today. 

Yes, thank you, Kevin. So, there are four key technology forces that Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s president and chief product officer, has identified.

One is that “inference is the new workload.” Meaning that traffic is actually being driven not only by people interacting with agents, but also agents interacting with other agents.

No. 2 is that “agents are the new workforce.” Agents are becoming integral to collaboration. For example, in the contact center, an agent might manage initial interactions before seamlessly handing it off to a human supervisor.

The third is very real, “tokenomics is the new currency.” As AI usage grows, compute costs rise, making the monitoring and management of these resources essential.

And then one of my favorites: “control is the new moat.” Cisco is especially well positioned for this. It’s about the way that we integrate security into the network and into collaboration. Once we defend all that data, we can leverage it in new ways.

How do those four forces impact the collaboration space?

These forces are changing collaboration in three important areas: how people work, how workplaces evolve, and how companies engage with their customers.

How is Webex by Cisco helping customers meet these changes, particularly with its integration of AI?

Collaboration is mission critical for all organizations and companies out there today, and I see a new frontier emerging, specifically around context. If you go back just 12 months, you could walk out of a meeting and much of that context would be lost. You lose momentum. Now, with AI agents, that momentum can continue long after the meeting ends. We call this Connected Intelligence, bringing context together so it can move with you across meetings, applications, devices and physical spaces. So, your context travels with you. Furthermore, any organization can deploy Webex at enterprise scale, with the security, observability, and manageability that is so essential.

Despite the freedom of remote work, the physical workspace is still extremely important. What does an intelligent workplace look like?

We need to earn the commute. The experience in the workplace has to be better than your home office or kitchen table. I should be able to walk out of one meeting, enter another room, press a button and get straight to work. For years, I’ve said that a successful day for technology is one where you don’t notice it. Technology should be a supporting actor in what we do.Another factor is data. In an intelligent workplace, you can analyze usage and occupancy patterns to optimize everything from lighting to where people are sitting at what time, when to slow or increase the air conditioning, and so on. All of that can go towards creating a great experience — in a space where people do creative thinking and get ideas flowing.

That also helps the folks managing the spaces.

Yes, we want to help the people that own the buildings, the facilities managers, the IT managers, and give them super tools so they can do their jobs in the most effective way.

Cisco’s unified platform strategy approach is integrating and simplifying once-disparate tools. How is that taking shape across Cisco’s collaboration portfolio?

Where Cisco shows another incredible strength is in our combination of security, control, and manageability. We provide the IT organization or the facilities organization with tools that allow them to operate very effectively. We have a brand-new, extremely powerful tool called Cisco Cloud Control. It enables you to control your network setup and access points, your security, your data center, and collaboration, all from one pane of glass. By tearing down the silos between these separate elements, we enable organizations to scale effectively. When you add agentic AI, which sifts through all of this data and agentically makes adjustments. So, we are providing unique superpowers to the IT organization and to collaboration.

Webex has set the gold standard for security in collaboration. As workplaces become more connected and data driven, how are you maintaining, if not surpassing that gold standard?

At Cisco, security is paramount; it’s mission critical. Collaboration is where decisions are made, it’s where strategies are made, it’s where products are developed. And now AI is part of it. So, I'll bring it back to one of my favorite words, which is “moat.” I think about it as the water around the castle that keeps the adversaries out. And the uniqueness of what Cisco can provide is that we have security fused into the network, and fused into collaboration.

As more AI agents become part of the workforce, we also need to think about what happens inside those defenses. That’s why security has to be built into the network and into collaboration from the beginning. Trust is architectural.

All those agents can bring security concerns. Yes, security will be even more important as we have more agents in the workforce. How do you make sure you can control them and keep everything secure? It goes back to our top priority at Cisco. We believe security is architectural. And we continue to apply that discipline now that AI is more deeply integrated into all of our products.

Without divulging key announcements ahead of WebexOne, can you share a few hints on what we can expect?

Well, we will be jam packed with new announcements, but I’ll dive into a few areas. One area is customer experience, where we’re moving from contact to context. When you interact with a brand, that relationship should carry forward across channels and over time. AI creates an opportunity to make those interactions more continuous, with a better understanding of the customer and what needs to happen next. It’s about delivering innovation that will empower brands with more context about you, the customer. That means your contact-center experience will be much more seamless and efficient.

Second is a real cliff hanger: We will announce a new integration with one of the world’s leading technology providers that will enable us to really build on our platform strategy. We already have strong partnerships with companies like NVIDIA and Microsoft, and we're very excited to be adding to that.

Then, we’ll be integrating more products with Cisco Cloud Control, which is very exciting as well. And the final one is around intelligent workplace experiences. And it goes back to your earlier question, Kevin, about providing an optimized workplace — and using data to empower the teams that own and operate the building. And to do that we're bringing together collaboration, networking, security, observability, Wi-Fi access points, Cisco Spaces, Cisco Cloud Control.

It’s super exciting. While people-to-people collaboration will always be paramount, the new frontier is people-to-AI and AI-to-AI interactions. And we’re entering a new phase where people work alongside AI, and AI agents increasingly collaborate with other agents. We call that Connected Intelligence, and I think the combination of all three will fundamentally change how we work.

Many thanks, Snorre. And good luck with WebexOne!

Thank you, Kevin. We look forward to seeing everyone in Austin or on the livestream. There’s a lot more exciting news to share!

 

Click here to learn more about all the exciting happenings at WebexOne 2026!