Countdown to "Cisco Live!"
And just like that, we are live coming to you directly from the convention center here in Las Vegas. So good to have you with us on the live streaming broadcast through this entire incredible Cisco TV crew. What an incredible event we had for every single one of you. My name is Steve Multer, I'm one of your five hosts here on the streaming broadcast all week long. I'm going to introduce you to your other four co-hosts in just a moment. Right now I want to let you know, we are just 30 minutes out from the day one keynote appearance. We are all so excited here at the show, 25,000 streaming into the keynote space down the hall from where we are right now. Chuck Robbins, Jeetu Patel, phenomenal team with special guest as well as showing us how to lead in the agentic era. Top minds in the industry showing us what it means to build, to secure, to run an enterprise where people and AI agents work side by side at work and partnership and cooperation with one another. Cisco is the critical infrastructure for the AI era. What does that mean for you? AI-ready data centers that helps you to modernize your AI infrastructure, power your workloads everywhere. It means future-proofed workplaces that are helping you to reimagine the way that business happens everywhere that it happens and digital resilience that keeping your organization up and running in the face of escalating disruptions. So excited for that day one broadcast. We are coming to you live throughout the week. We are going to take you right up to the keynote, all the way through the keynote, and all the way across the entire "Cisco Live!" conference. We want to hear from you on social media using #CiscoLiveEMEA to whatever social platform you prefer. Come out, reach out to us, come and talk to us about where you are watching and where you are tuning in from and what you are excited about. Go ahead and comment on social media on what you hear in the keynote and all of the fantastic sessions and center stage presentations. We want to hear from all of you throughout the day. As promised, I want to introduce you to the other co-hosts on the broadcast. Turn slightly to my left and here's the amazing Zoe Williams.
Hi, friend. I'm super excited to be back in Las Vegas for "Cisco Live!" 2026. I tell you, I am just ready for all that's going to be going on throughout the studio, throughout the world of solutions. I'm just ready.
You always come with an energy. You are always pumped up and so excited for what's coming up next for the interviews and phenomenal interviews lined up. I won't break the secret on those right now, we will talk about it later. Hopefully you and I will keep talking about the week.
My friend, my friend, come, I'm ready.
We will go out to the keynote, 25,000 people flooding in the door. There are the very happy Robb Boyd and an incredible Lauren White who by the way is going to be on stage in the keynote tomorrow. I want to give that away right now. So exciting. Let me hand it out to the two of you and you will pass it over to Lauren.
You remind me of when I'm flying in on the airline and there's always the attendant that comes on and says let me be the first to welcome you here. What if someone else wanted to welcome us here? Lauren is going to be on stage. We are so proud of her, because she keeps working her way up here. My name is Robb Boyd, this is Lauren White. Happy to be together with you guys with everyone here. We are here in the executive. Lauren knocked me back in the green room. Normally I'm forced to only be backstage, it turns out they have much better snacks. Fantastic. Lauren, as a security engineer, how do you look at this different in terms of this moment in time and what you expect to learn and accomplish coming out of this conference?
I am so excited, especially because as we see, we are in the age of AI. We are also in the age of AI and tech. I'm thankful for what I'm seeing. I'm super excited to see how we are -- how we protect them and how we learn even more to make sure that we are giving them the tools they need to succeed. There is so much to say and so much to do and so much to see. I cannot wait for you all to hear.
I'm excited to come. All the pieces are coming together. We arrived here with a lot of problems and stuff to get work, but with a lot of answers and that's what we are stringing together today. We are going to get some people here and maybe get to the conference to check back in with us. If you don't mind, come, I will throw back to you.
Thank you so much. Come, you guys are amazing. You are our eyes and ears in the keynote space in the arena which is just down the concourse back over here on this side. It's about to get very, very loud in there. Next time we head out to the two of them, they won't be able to hear a thing reporting with that energy. Lauren just hit it so on the head. The age of agentic. As the AI era rolls up on us, so do the security challenges that come along with the AI era. We are so excited to hear what people will say. He nailed it when he said this is where we come together as a community to fix those problems.
I can see my fabulous friend and our fifth host. I'm going to call her our first host here. We've gone through the other four, saving the best for last. Michelle Moreira is out in the world of solutions.
Steve, it is so great to be here for my third "Cisco Live!" and my second hosting with you all. Steve, Robb, Lauren, Z, this is an excellent community. Come and get excited for today. Like Steve said, come up. My name is Michelle Copora. I'm a product marketing manager, and I get particularly excited about talking about the one platform advantage, how the Cisco portfolio comes together. Can I get excited? And you'll hear more about this on the keynote and walk through some really cool stuff here on the show floor here. Back to you, Steve.
You are our Splunk insider expert. When it comes to that data store and full-stack observability story, I'm coming to you every time we possibly can. One of the things that people really don't understand is what it takes to put a conference like this together. We are going to talk more about it in a minute. I want everybody to watch what it takes to build this particular event out. This.
Seriously, all of that effort to build out this amazing space for us all to play in.
I heard you had a conversation with Lauren and Heather. We will take a look at what they had to say.
You are joining me in one of my favorite things that we get to do here at the conference. Normally we have to wait till the end of the conference. If you could see what's going on behind me, come up, we are still in construction. We do not open until tomorrow morning. I've got the people who are responsible for putting all of this behind me here with me, Heather Henderson, Laura, my friend, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. Thank you for making time at the beginning before everything goes into chaos. Are you feeling amazed by all of this?
Amazed, energized, and excited. It's hard to comprehend sometimes until you get on site the depth and breadth and scope of what we are doing this week. And the build that it takes, how long it takes to build. It's fun to see this entire year of work for the entire team coming together and coming to fruition and ready for action.
I agree. The number of people, exactly what Heather just said, come, nobody realizes. They walk in the door and it's all done. It's just that easy. For the two of you on your team as well.
We worked so hard all year round. Come, our customers, come, our partners, come, Cisco, come, everyone is dedicated to "Cisco Live!" the best experience possible for all the attendees coming on site. That's what we think about all year round.
It does start early and we talk about this every year that it kicks off while it's still going on here. It's an amazing event. Incredible. We are back in Las Vegas and back at Mandalay Bay. What has changed? What is adapted?
It's different for every venue. I think this year, we are all under one roof here at Mandalay Bay. We have reorganized how we lay out the world of solutions. We have added more activations and more fun kind of things beyond the classroom. We've done a lot more of that. There's so much education that can be overwhelming. We've tried to think about the whole person and what they need. There's lots of cafes and plenty of coffee, especially for me. But there's fun activations here. There's a Lego station and a public area and so much happening. B.E. when you led me exactly where I wanted to go. Laura, keeping the human side of the conversation. That is why we are in the room together. Education can happen in a lot of different places as can cherry pickers. You can hear that in the background. Education can happen in so many different places. When it comes down to the individual, the human being at the way that we were able to interact in the room, why is this so special?
What makes "Cisco Live!" so special is the fact that they are coming together to see each other. They're coming to see the speakers to build everything for them. They are thinking about how to move their careers forward, whether it's through a certification class or talk to an SME. We are also making sure that they are thinking about their personal journey. What can they do and learn in the purpose pavilion? What can they learn from our mentorship and networking activity? We want to think about who's coming and all the amount of time they are spending here. We recognize that as a commitment, and we want to celebrate them.
There's so much that happens in the moments in between. That's the magic of being together in the person is the human connection in this world of AI and technology. Connections to people make it. That's why they come back because these are those moments for them to solve problems that work but also whiteboard things and also work with people that are walking in their same shoes so that they can learn and grow together as we are all embracing the new AI era.
You could not have put this better. As we move deeper and deeper into AI, we overcome the confusion and surmount, where do our amendments go and what build outs do we do? Where can we invest in that's going to create the benefit? At the core of that is the human being. Pure Jeetu talks about this again and again and again. That comes to fruition.
That's what we think about. How can we help customers be prepared and anticipate changes? It's moving so quickly. Nobody knows what the future holds, but we want to make sure they are prepared for any change that's coming at them, whether security or networking, the new infrastructure. You will learn all about that here at "Cisco Live!".
I'm going to date all three of us. We have been together for so long and doing this for so long. This is really fun. I go all the way back with Heather to I believe when you are very first event running this. We were together on that one. Laura, you came in a couple of years later. We are talking 20 years of evolution of this spectacular event. This is going to be so exciting. This isn't just a one-off. This is building, and building, and building something different and maintaining excitement and growing the Cisco community. What does that mean to you on a personal level?
I'm overwhelmed and humbled that I've been on this project for 20 years. It's really because of the people that we get to work with across Cisco and our customers and partners and how much joy they find in coming here. I think what is really interesting is "Cisco Live!" was born after Networkers was built. It became "Cisco Live!". We've had this 20-year legacy here. It's the next opportunity for us because we are now a global team here. We are now not only "Cisco Live!" Americas, but we have EMEA and APJC. We are one team working together to bring "Cisco Live!" to life around the globe here. That's making a big difference. I'm super excited about this next chapter. The role I'm in and being able to do it with my partner Laura, we are thrilled for the next chapter of "Cisco Live!" and see what we can bring to life inside.
You nailed it with the human element. I can't wait to come on site. I love my team but we are all remote. We see each other and we see the speakers and the customers and the partners here. It's this whole circle that we are here to learn and to talk to one another and think about the future. Everyone is really excited about the future, where are we going? It is scary but we will give you a foundation and make sure we are doing it together. We are on a journey together. That's the best part.
So good storytelling. It makes me go back to the fabulous arena we were in together in Orlando when we were inviting first timers, people who had never been to the event. We would put up slides, what is available here to you at the event? What should you look forward to if this is the first time attending Networkers going into Live, what can you expect to be different? What can you take advantage of? The world has changed so much but also the number of things to take advantage of is like a different planet.
It's night and day from when I started on the project in 2006. What we have today, come, we envisioned back then. Now we have it, come, and we are excited to set the vision for what the next 20 years are going to be.
Set vision for us. Tomorrow morning, the event opens up and people flood in through the doors. Pure excitement is incredibly high. Everyone is hugging on each other and so grateful to be back in the room together. What can we look forward to? Set us up for day one.
We kick off strong tomorrow, presenting and talking about how we are making a difference in the world. That really sets the tone thinking about what we are doing at Cisco and what we are doing with our customers and partners to drive things forward. I think about the education, the hands-on training. Capture the flag, walk-in labs, people are here and hungry to learn. Then they come down and see the showcase. What other products they are going to make a difference for them in the future? It's a lot to see. You've got to pace yourself. It's only Monday tomorrow.
They are finally acceptable. I think for me, come, I am with Laura. When the world of solutions doors open tomorrow, that to me is the moment. There is so much activity in the show floor. So many experiences that people can have. This is where the magic happens. If you aren't in a session or keynote, you need to be in the world of solutions. This is where the conversations happen, you meet with our partners, you find solutions and find new products. You discover things. It is a world of opportunity in here. This is where they need to be.
It's also the ecosystem of everything taking place around us. You have IT leadership taking place and the NOC and SOC this year as the heartbeat center of this spectacular showcase that we've never really had that kind of experience here. The NOC has been there but it's set to the side and is part of it. Now you walk in and there it is. It's right in front of you. Watch the SOC in action. It is so hands-on and personal and becomes very individual for the guest who joins us here at the show.
You will talk to the engineers who literally built the network here. They've been here for two weeks and are running this network. It's like 130 terabytes of data that we are going to pass through the Cisco infrastructure. Rock solid. If you have questions, come and go and find the person who literally built the network for. That is really a great experience here.
Always about adding something new. I need the two of you to make me a promise. Can we do this more throughout the week and continue setting things up? Let's find these opportunities, because I think everyone who is tuning into the broadcast wants to hear them. And the two of you are at the center of making all of this stuff happen. On behalf of everybody as I do every year, thank you for giving us a home to play in this week. Thank you on behalf of everybody who's tuning into the broadcast that you've given them a platform to pay attention to. Congratulations and we will do more of this.
There you go. Come on, Heather Henderson. Come on, Laura Simmons, two of the biggest driving forces behind this incredible program and this amazing event that we are all so excited to share. We are less than 15 minutes from our day one keynote. I want to head back straight to the keynote space. Lauren White has somehow managed to track down the incredible senior VP, chief marketing officer. Lauren, take it away.
Yes, yes. Come, I'm here with Carrie, chief marketing officer here at Cisco. Every year, this event takes it to the next level. What are you most excited for this year?
So many things. Beyond the obvious, the keynotes and innovations that will be announced this week -- which are incredible, I want to talk about what my team has done. We put on this show and take it seriously the whole concept of customer experience. From the moment you set foot in Las Vegas in the airport at the terminal, you are going to see brand new creative around AI. We have been seeding the market with this positioning of we are the critical infrastructure for the AI era. You're going to see what that means today. We are going to have our new ad campaign up on stage with Chuck -- which we are super excited about. Almost exclusively created through AI. Which is a first for us. And it is stunningly beautiful. I'm really excited about it. It really starts to play through what it means to be the critical infrastructure. What are we doing out in the world? It starts to build emotional connections. We are a tech company. It's hard to have emotional connections. This ad campaign is starting to build emotional connections with consumers around the world for what we enable for their lives.
I feel the emotion in the room. I felt that when I got into the airport. Cisco is everywhere. If you didn't know, now you know. After ten years being here, come, I didn't think we could keep taking this to the next level but we do. I'm so excited to be part of such an amazing team.
This momentum in the world for us is a beautiful time, and Cisco has earned this for 41 years of delivering and having integrity and trust with our customers. And it is crucial in doing right now. It's a beautiful moment.
I couldn't agree more. I'm honored to be here with you and be here in this moment and feel the energy. I think we are going to pass it over back to Robb. Bye bye, guys.
We will throw it to Robb in a moment. I will take it first, because I'm greedy and I like to talk to everyone. I make a mention of this. People say why do I need to go? I can get the entire conference by tuning into the broadcast. You can get a great deal of it here. Carrie Palin walking around in the room. Chuck is walking in the room. Jeetu is walking in the space all the time. Where can you get in the room and be together with these driving forces with these incredible thought leaders?
All of those that you just named are people. Those are people. You can't do any of this without people. Coming from my space, I'm a program manager with a sustainability, socially impact and sustainability office. That's our people. We can't do any of this without 3P. Carrie said something that was so integral that resonated with me. She talked about integrity and trust. Those are characteristics intrinsic to humans. You have to have AI with humans partnering together. That is what we are going to be talking about all this week.
We are going to go back out to the keynote space because Robb is hanging out. Briefly set up, what is our Cisco Champions program?
I will have this gentleman here, Simon, who I have met before here. He reminded me, you have been part of the Cisco Champions program for... give me your full name and what you do. I'm curious to get your perspective on the program.
My name is Simon Roberts. I'm very excited to be here today. Because we are in such a good community in the champions. We learn a lot and help each other out. I'm very excited for today for the first keynote. I think at Cisco, things go fast, and there's a lot of technology that's being released especially for AI. We are seeing a unifying of the technology. That is pretty impressive. No competitors are doing that. Cisco is doing that. Honestly, clients love it.
On the champion -- I'm a Cisco champion now that I'm external to Cisco technically speaking. You guys are specialists in your own way running your own companies and this type of thing. The idea is that you have a feedback loop within Cisco that's at a deeper level than anybody out on the street. This allows you to integrate with your customers in a better manner with Cisco solutions. Pure.
Every month, we get technical review of new technology that will be released. We know before everybody else the new products that will be available for our customer. Of course, to be part of the Cisco Champions alpha to serve our clients better.
This is one reason why I encourage anyone that is saying, I think I could be a Cisco champion. Check into it, because you probably can. There's a ton of value lurking with all the conversations you guys have. I learn a lot because you bring a ground-level truth to things that I find inspiring and very interesting. You guys are really good about supporting each other and sharing each other's ability to post more often, to be more engaged in the community. I really love that. Was the one thing you were looking forward for your team and customers to come out of this week?
To learn more about Cisco Cloud overall. I think it is a key part and component that we will be looking at today at this keynote. To unify everything and make sure that the network is secure. So with AI, come, it's fun, but it's dangerous. We need to have companies like Cisco processing the data center and our customer of course.
I think Cisco is in a position with a competitive moat and ability to pull this level of data from silicon all the way to the cloud and everything in between and be able to draw a consistent picture that can allow us to make better decisions and turn up that autonomy dial. We will talk more about that later. Thank you so much for reaching out to me and I always appreciate talking to you and your peers. With that, Steve, we will check back with you.
Thank you for bringing up that detailing that story. Cisco Champions is so important. Not only are they experts on our technologies and capabilities as we just heard, they are that direct link to the customer the way we can listen to the customer and respond and react and give them what they need. I want to go back out to the world of solutions one more time. Michelle is standing in the heart of everything halfway between digital resilience and future workplaces. We haven't opened up yet which is why you are beautifully framed out there by yourself. As soon as the keynote is done, you are going to be in the midst of the crowd. What are you checking out?
Thank you so much for throwing it over here in the world of solutions. One thing that Carrie just said is from the very beginning of landing in a Vegas airport through the keynote through the world of solutions summit, you are going to get innovation and brand and excitement at every step of the way. I think I mentioned this is my third "Cisco Live!". I've been hearing Steve and Robb and Lauren say every year they up it. I'm going to walk you through a little bit of what you can get excited about. Let's get a sense for the scale of this. We have everything from demos, lounges, activation. Let's start right here, future-proofed workplaces. We've got some fun things for you. Take a look at the Cisco Cafe. You can call and text in a cappuccino or latte at any time of the day. The Webex AI agent is there for you. Seeing these in action, the real-world examples along with demos is bringing it to you. We are also going to talk about, when you hear really exciting announcements and innovations at the keynote, those are incredibly exciting. Where you will see it come to life is on this world of solutions show floor. We have got demos and exciting activation. Like I said, we've got people to connect to it to show you how you can bring this to your organization at scale. Follow me into digital resilience. This is one of the three key areas of how we like to talk about the Cisco portfolio. And one thing that I really love, of course being a product marketing manager at Splunk, is unifying your machine data. We talked about it in three phases. Unifying the machine data and fuel and contextualize it. And then you activate it for AI. Let's end right here. We will end with a Cisco platform advantage. How does that portfolio come together? In the keynote, keep in mind Cisco Cloud Control. I think you will find some incredibly exciting announcements. This is some great stuff. When you are done with the keynote, come on down here to the show floor and get your hands on demos and talk with experts and learn how you can thrive in the enterprise AI era. Steve, back to you.
Thank you for walking us through that. We are less than 4 minutes away from the keynote. I think Robb has found a collection of champions. Go for it, Robb.
We have a bunch of people here, some more colorful than others. Introduce yourself and I will do this.
All right, come on, you have the Cisco champions. Some of you sporting more, but very respectable on all of it. That's a commitment. Let's start with you, why the cape?
It's a Cisco challenge. Participating and taking pictures and participating in the "Cisco Live!" challenge.
You are engaged. You have been engaged. You are here on camera as well. Tell us what you do and what you have learned this week.
I am working for a company in Denmark helping a lot of critical infrastructure customers. We help people with getting water to their houses. Part of the Cisco champions. I'm sharing a lot of what I've learned through the years to the public so they can get something back.
I love that. You are an educator as well and the whole thing. Nobody can hear me, but that's fine. Jeremy, we have met several times. We always have a good time together. What are you looking for this week?
I'm looking for a lot of the road map sessions and just being part of the Cisco Insiders group. It's awesome community where we share our knowledge. And we have a great time.
What is the key to getting your boss to approve you coming out here? What is your secret?
We are pretty much a full Cisco shop. "Cisco Live!" is pretty much my one conference a year that I get to go to. And bringing all the knowledge back to the company to get everything out of the Cisco products is definitely a benefit.
If we start getting a countdown, I've got a throwback to the studio. What are the expectations on you when you come to something like this? Are you training people that couldn't afford to come out? Are you looking to meet customers?
Being with the customers and bringing value back, that's the main idea here. Connecting with all the people to bring those connections back so I have connections to reach out to and can get knowledge from.
This is awesome. We've got a lot of stuff happening this week and learn a lot of stuff here. I can't wait to see what we have in the keynote. With that, I will let you take over control.
Is loaded back there. I'm so excited for things to kick off here. Thank you for being the faces and voices out in the front. We will see those insiders back in here in the insiders space and theater area here in the showcase and here in the world of. I want to take one more visit out to my buddy Michelle where...
You found me in Digital Resilience. There are some really, really cool activations and demos and hands-on labs right here for all of you guys to check out after the keynote. One thing I want to show you is the Security Operations Center, the NOC center, SOC of the future. This is incredible stuff. When we say demos and real-world examples, the purpose is to show value. How will it save you time and resources and energy and onboarding and off-loading, really making sure you are moving from a reactive to proactive organization at scale? This stuff is going to be really fun. Come on down. The show floor is completely empty right now, everybody is packed and waiting to hear the keynote. This will be a really fun way to get together and network with people and meet people. You will see some people out here for sure. I'm not the only one yet. Steve, thank you.
I appreciate it. Guess what, it is time, my friend. How are you feeling right now?
I am excited. The energy in this place -- you should be here. If you are not here, you need to be here. Steve, what are you looking forward to hearing?
This is when we bring together the new announcements. We will hear about Mythos on the Atlantic front. We have got all sorts of different pieces of the puzzle that start to fit together as we go from agentic era conceptual to actual practical applications. That is what 2026 is all about. I was talking with Oliver Tuszik. He said this is where everything comes together. It is the first time that we have found ourselves at a collision point between the technology capabilities, the network foundation platforms and the data centers we have been creating and the demand within the organizational space. I guess we are going back out to launch again. I guess that's what we are going to do.
I am here, and I am ready. You are in the keynote and walking past to hear the chatter, you can hear people excited. I'm excited. I would say that I am with you. If you are not here, you are missing out for sure. If you've ever had a case of FOMO, that is the case to have it. I will throw it back over to you at the studio.
Thank you guys. You are looking fabulous. Chuck Robbins, Chief Executive Officer. Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer. Amazing guests coming up joining the critical infrastructure of the AI era conversation. Brian Niccol, Chair and CEO of Starbucks is going to be on. Chief Information Officer and MD. Like I said, leadership. It is fast developing agentic era. This is not just about ambition. Ambition is not enough. Organizations are only going to win if we can put AI to work alongside our people. That is what it means to deliver that critical infrastructure. It makes the agentic era possible. How can we infuse security into the fabric of the network? How do we enable more visual and operations? Do it at machine speed. How do we transform our data into AI-ready intelligence? How do we empower our teams to securely harness agentic AI and do it at scale? These are big demands that we have for our time. We are excited to hear from the leadership not only of Cisco but these phenomenal partners bringing us the entire story. Remember, hit those comments and tell us what you love. Use #CiscoLive on those socials. We are headed out. Here we go.
Please welcome Chair and Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins!
Thank you. You know, thinking about Cisco Live -- and I was thinking. Every year I come on stage, and I say, this is the most important Cisco Live we've ever had. And this year, it is true. Not that it hasn't been true in the past. It has been true in the past. If you think about everything that has been going on right now, this is a really, really important time. I want to thank all of you in this room and all of you in the overflow areas and those online who last year watched some portion of this 15 million different streams last year. And so we appreciate you joining. We appreciate you spending time with us. I hope that when you leave Las Vegas this week, you truly feel like this is a great, great use of your time. Before we get going, I want to reflect and be a little nostalgic. Not for the sake of being nostalgic. But sometimes, when we look back, it helps us think about the future. 40 plus years ago, Cisco built the first router. Who remembers what it was called? Okay. You guys are too young. The lovely AGS. It was a simple idea. The two founders, professors at Stanford who were on disparate computer types wanted to communicate, and they built their first router. They thought that connectivity could truly unleash amazing possibilities. And they taught us the key lesson of the internet revolution. That the network is truly more powerful than the node. And as we think about what's going on in our businesses, and as you think about what you are trying to accomplish inside of your organization, you understand that to be true. Every technology revolution we have seen has been ultimately dependent upon the network. The internet. I remember my first computer. I'm not going to tell you what it was. But you all know how old I am anyway. It was powerful and fun and amazing. But then when it got connected, it was incredible. And the experience elevated. Think about the mobile revolution. I remember hosting young students at Cisco. They would come in. If you really pressed them, they didn't really know what we did. They didn't know what we built. I would always tell them to pull out their phones. I said, here, I'm going to make it very simple for you. If we didn't do what we do, that wouldn't work. They go, oh, my god. I don't know what you do, but please keep doing it. And then cloud, and now, AI. The buzz we hear around GPUs is incredibly important. The models are incredibly important. It's incredibly important. The apps and agentic revolution, all that meet those we will talk about later. They are all nodes. And they are super powerful independently. But they are massively more powerful when they are networked. None of it works without you and the things you do to make it all come to life for your organization. And the good news for us is this thing is moving really slowly so we can take our time. Become educated. Understand it. Design a multi-year security architecture. Okay. It's moving faster than anything we have seen in our lives. Not only is the technology moving fast, we get to layer on other things that are going on in the world. The geopolitical landscape is complicated. We have inflation due to primarily due to the war in the Middle East. We have got political division and polarization. The world is dynamic at a time where we have a sense of urgency. There's a lot of uncertainty. And it's a bit chaotic. Aren't you glad you came? But you think about it. We are in a full-out sprint. Many of you walked in the room maybe half an hour ago. But you realized, the world we live in today, in the last half hour, a new model could be launched and we would all be scrambling, or an attacker might have taken down some major system. Some political statement might have caused a seismic shift in the geopolitical landscape. This is what we are dealing with. Which is why it is really important for all of us to do the things that we are doing to help our customers or to help your organizations whether you are a customer or government or enterprise or partner. Actually deliver the right technology with the appropriate security with the right workforce. That has never been more important. Despite all the uncertainty, and despite all the fears, I fundamentally believe that we will together meet this moment because of all the people in this room and all the people that are watching today online. Because if we look at what has to be accomplished, many of us have been here before. There were similar uncertainty with the rise of the internet. I remember when some folks in a company I worked for back a long time ago said, we are never going to run IBM mainframe traffic across that junior network you are building. There will never be an internet connection into this organization. That is just crazy. Do you realize the risk we would have if that occurred? People were fearful and distrustful. They didn't understand it. And all of you or your predecessors led the way. Look at where we are now. Everybody talks about whether we are in a bubble. I go, I don't know. They talk about whether dot com was a bubble. I don't know. Does it matter? The winners emerged, the winners embraced the technology. We continue to benefit from everything that happened during that time. You were the architects of that. You are going to be the architect of how AI reshapes industries and organizations. Whether you are designing factory systems, you are making classrooms more personalized and productive, you are helping science analyze data and advance disease cures, transforming customer experience. That's what you are doing. You are building a security infrastructure that will power incredible outcomes. And we all know that when the network works, nobody thinks about it. When it doesn't work, you might get a phone call. Because of exactly what I have been describing. The power of the network brings all of it together and makes it happen. And together, we have this incredible responsibility and opportunity to build the infrastructure in a way that makes AI useful, secure, trusted, real. And that is exciting. Collectively, I believe that we are truly going to deliver the critical infrastructure for the AI era. Between Cisco and you, we are at the center of this. Based on what we know today, we believe that the network traffic associated with AI will triple in the next three years. You remember when video was revolutionary, and we kept upgrading that work and everything? Here we are again. By the way, we think they are going to triple based on what we know today. We have robotics. We have manufacturing, we have physical AI. All of those things are going to put traffic on the networks at an incredible pace. Over 90% of you have said, I've got to be modernized in my technology infrastructure today and make my network more resilient and be ready for this transition. We are working on it. You are working on it. And Cisco wants to partner with you. Because we believe we have a unique capability. Because we have this full stack. Jeetu will talk a lot about that, I'm sure. From silicon to the platform with security, observability to help you implement the infrastructure that you need to for your organization to take advantage of this wave. Today, I am really proud. I stood on stage a few years ago and talked about how we were going to increase the pace of innovation. And the teams have just done that, maybe to a point where it's hard to absorb sometimes. You are going to hear about it today. Agentic Ops with Cisco Cloud Control and infrastructure. Trust for agentic workforce. You will hear more from that from Jeetu and his team. Also Cisco IQ from Liz. She will talk about that. In just a few weeks, we have 1700 plus customers who are using that technology. And 90% of them have self-onboarded because of the importance of deploying that technology to understand your infrastructure, and what you need to be thinking about to prepare not only for the AI build-out but also to the security implications of a lot of what we have been talking about. And just like last year, we will continue to work with you in three big areas. Number one, helping you build AI-ready data centers. You will hear a lot about that this week. Helping future-proof your workplaces. And doing all of that with a foundation of security and digital resilience. And you will hear a lot from Jeetu and Liz and the team all week in the breakouts on exactly that. And while we are delivering all the innovation we are talking about today and this week, we have to be ready for what is ahead. And we are working on that as well. I've met with many of you this year at some point along the way. Our teams have met with many of you. We have talked to governments around the world and heads of state and U.S. governments. And the questions they are asking have changed. Just think. If we had hosted Cisco Live 90 days ago, we wouldn't talk about Mythos. Think about that. 90 days ago, we were all talking about memory. That was the thing everyone wanted to talk about. As soon as Mythos was released, we stopped talking about memory. Maybe not completely. But we shifted. This is a CEO-level discussion. There is an understanding of the criticality of what is going on here. And the questions we are being asked. I'm the chair of the Business Roundtable, the top 240 companies in America. And we are hosting calls with CEOs who want to learn about Mythos. Want to understand what they should be doing in their organizations. How do we secure and govern AI and protect our data and trust autonomous systems? How do we move fast while balancing risk? These are the things you are all thinking through. They are all walking in your office probably daily. What progress have we made since yesterday? What are we thinking? How is it going to impact us? For many of you, you are dealing with a lot of this in an uncertain way, because you haven't gotten your hands on some of this new technology. There's three key areas. One is obviously cyber defense. Pure AI changes the speed of defense. The bad corollary to that is, it is empowering our adversaries at a pace we have never seen in our careers. It has become very real with models like Mythos. And my team and others in the industry have said this. This is not an original statement from me. We all have to remember, these models are as bad today as they are ever going to be. We were part of Glasswing. Our goal was to understand how we could safeguard our customers. How we could come together as a broader ecosystem to work on AI-powered defense and to stop AI-powered threats. And the most striking thing is not necessarily the technology. It's the implications. The business implications, the societal implications, the government implications. Those are the discussions we are having here. We have got access to GPT-5.5 Cyber. We open-sourced Boundary Security Spec -- which is a harness or a blueprint for agentic security evaluation of systems so that you can actually take a look at how this will play out once you start working with these models. I would encourage all of you to take a look at that. We really need to work together. Think about how we defend against these emerging threats and how we make sure that we've built that architecture in a way that allows us to spend more time talking about the benefits of AI. The positives of AI. Every technology transition we have ever been through has brought the great benefits of the technology and unintended negatives. I want us to work together to deal with some of these complexities so that we can all focus on delivering the positive benefits for our organizations. But how we build these architectures and defend are going to have to fundamentally change. You will hear more from that from Jeetu today. We originally were supposed to have the White House National Cyber Director here with us today. Something arose yesterday as it tends to do in Washington. And he is unable to be here. But a lot of what he would have shared with you -- and he really wanted to talk to this group -- would be about, how do you ensure that your infrastructure compares? Our teams put out a document called -- you can see on the screen where you can download it today and take a look at the things that you need to do. Because we realize that every customer hasn't had access to some of these models. There are a lot of things you can do today that will help you feel better about how you are heading into the future. We put out a blog this morning. In the last eight weeks, we scanned 1.8 billion lines of code in 25 different programming languages. Before these models came, that would have probably taken us eight years. Think about that. 1.8 billion. And again, remember, these models are as bad today as they are ever going to be. It will keep getting better. This is one of the positive benefits. We will put out patches and the blog explains how we are going to approach patches for our customers. I would encourage all of you. We spent a lot of time talking to governments. We talked to governments in the U.S. and governments around the world. And what we are hearing from governments around the world, and this really started in Europe, was this desire for sovereign infrastructure. Where you want us to meet your evolving needs around sovereignty of data and sovereignty of AI and sovereignty of cloud services. And this means that we have to change how we operate to actually be able to deliver for you. It's not one size fits all. I wish it was. It would be a lot easier. There are countries all around the world that have variations of requirements that they are asking us to deliver so that they can feel good about sovereignty and however they define sovereignty. It is not consistent, I can assure you. But we are working hard to solve sovereign critical infrastructure portfolios primarily targeted at Europe early on. We are seeing and hearing this in Asia and other parts of the world. The need for on-prem, air-gapped, AI-ready infrastructure with trust-based licensing. We are going to help you build that architecture with more control and more visibility and more security and more confidence during the uncertain times that we are navigating. And then, there is this new technology on the horizon called quantum. And it is going to be a major disruption much like AI. It is a fundamental shift in computing. It will be great because it will have the power to solve complex challenges fast. Think about combining quantum with AI, and you think about attacking chronic diseases. What's possible will be mind-boggling as we go to the future. It will also bring some risks that we all have to work on together. Some of you are thinking about this, and some of you are not. We have been investing and innovating in this space over the last six or seven years. So that we will be ready when you are ready. We have made incredible progress on the R&D front with a full stack of hardware and software. We recently launched the Universal Quantum Switch working research prototype. And I do believe this will bring incredible opportunities for us so that when it becomes an imperative for your organization, we want to be there for you. Then I want to highlight, the network is more powerful than the node. That applies to the organization and the people in this room watching remotely, watching virtually. There are massive challenges that we are all looking to solve together. One idea. That is just. And you are trying to define where trust, security, governance, judgment live in an AI-powered world. We want to continue to partner with you, continue to have the relationship that we have had for 30 or 40 years with many of you. We want to go on this journey together. And I think the power of this network of all the people in this room, with Cisco and our partners is going to be more important than ever. Because the criticality of us working very closely together to do two major things. Number one, prepare our technology infrastructure for the challenges. Secondly, and what I hope is more important, is to deliver the benefits that the technology will provide for the organizations in which all of us operate. You are going to hear a lot about this over the next day or two. But you talked about how one of our major enterprise customers is actually leveraging technology for the customer experience and how these AI ways they are thinking about that. Join me in welcoming to the stage, Brian Niccol, the CEO of Starbucks!
Thank you, Brian. One second, I need the card. You are not up here. This is Ashley. Say thank you, Ashley. She was a Tar Heel, for those of you who care. Thanks for coming.
Thanks for having me. After hearing all that, it makes me feel good that we sell coffee.
By the way, I had two cups this morning.
How many of you drank Starbucks this morning? We will do a commercial for a few million people to be better customers for you. We ended up knowing each other a reasonably long time. We met when you were at Chipotle. When you decided to make this change, we joked about how your challenges would be different. Maybe we'll get into that. Chipotle was rocketing. It was incredible. You led multiple companies through transitions and how things change. I would say you are probably doing something similar right now at Starbucks. I wonder when you go into a company that you haven't been a part of, how do you orient yourself to this completely new organism that is big? I know that if someone came in and took my job, they would do it a lot better. But it would be really complicated to learn all this complex stuff. How do you do that?
In the case of Starbucks, and the other businesses, obviously they are a customer-first business. Consumer businesses that you first have to understand, how do you do a great job for your customer? In the case of Starbucks, obviously because it's a retail business. We have to understand some of what we do when we serve our customers is center for success. We start there and obviously as you get into the organization, there's a lot of learning. You have to be open to the idea of doing a lot of listening and a lot of learning before necessarily you start sharing what you want everybody to go do. I have taken the approach of you've got to come in with a strong point of view of what you believe the company needs to do with the customer and our coffeehouse leaders or our partners. You've got to take the time to make sure that you listen and learn. How work gets done and how decisions are made. Figure out what is the most efficient way to get to outcomes for our customers?
I'm finishing 11. At what point -- a lot of the folks in this room right now are dealing with all the complexity. We are all learning. Similar to you, we are learning stuff in roles we are in. At what point do you feel like you've got enough information to make educated decisions and start moving on stuff that in some cases would be hard to reverse?
You said it earlier. The speed at which change is happening or the speed at which culture is changing is unlike anything we have seen before. The trick is, you've got to figure out how to make decisions with the best available information and pivot accordingly. I've found at least in our organizations, we sometimes think more of the decisions are more permanent than they really are. So you are better off to get going and then take in the new information and pivot accordingly. That has been the biggest change we've had to get across our organization. For an organization that is convicted in what we want to do, we have to have the agility to listen to the feedback we are getting and be aware of what is changing around us. Because the changes are fast and unexpected. Every morning I wake up, here we go. You've got to have an element of you enjoy that pace. You are not afraid to embrace the idea of, I didn't see that coming. That is the other thing. I say this all the time. If I knew what was going to happen next week with any sort of certainty, you know, we would probably be doing some other things besides what we are doing right here. But you've got to have the conviction to know what your business is all about. And I think the curiosity, do not be afraid to learn and pivot where a few things start showing up.
