And just like that, we are live. Coming to you directly from Mandalay Bay Convention Center here in Las Vegas. So good to have you all with us here on the live streaming broadcast. Thank you to this entire Cisco TV crew. What an incredible event we have ahead for every single one of you. My name is Steve, I'm one of your five hosts here on the streaming broadcast all week long. I will introduce you to your other four hosts in just a moment. But right now I want to let you know, we are just 30 minutes out from the day one keynote. We are also excited here at the show. 25,000 streaming into the keynote space just down the hall from where we are right now. Chuck Robbins, Jeetu Patel, a phenomenal team with some special guests showing us how to lead in the agentic era. Top minds of the industry showing us what it means to build, to secure, to run an enterprise where people and AI agents work side-by-side, in 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 help you to modernize your AI infrastructure. How are your workloads everywhere? It means future-proof workplaces that are helping you to reimagine the way that business happens everywhere than it happens. And then digital resilience. Keeping your organization up and running in the face of escalating disruptions. So excited for that day one broadcast. Again, we are coming to you live throughout the week. We will take you right up to the keynote, all the way through the keynote and then all the way across the entire Cisco Live conference. All week long, we want to hear from you on social media using hashtag Cisco Live. Whatever platform you prefer, please reach out to us, talk to us about where you are watching, where you are tuning in from, 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 hosts here on the broadcast. All I have to do is turn to my left, here's the amazing Ziaire Williams.
Hello, I'm excited to be back and in Las Vegas for Cisco Live 2026. I tell you, I am just ready for all that is going to be going on throughout the studio, throughout the solutions. I'm just ready, I'm so ready.
You always come with the energy, you're always pumped up, excited for what's happening next for the interviews and you have some phenomenal interviews lined up. I won't break the secret on those right now, we'll talk about it later. Hopefully you can keep that energy up for the week. But I'm so glad to share the top of the day with you.
We'll go to the keynote now. Like I said, 25,000 people flooding into the door. There are the very happy Rob Boyd, an incredible Lauren White, who by the way, is going to be on stage on the keynote in the future. And let me head up to the two of you, Rob, let's take it out for you and then you can pass it over to Lauren.
You remind me of on the airline and it comes on and goes, let me be the first to welcome you here. And I'm like, what if someone else wanted to welcome us here? It's good to be on stage. We are so proud because she keeps working her way up. Speaking of which, my name is Rob Boyd and this is Lauren White, so happy to be together with you guys and everyone here. We are here as executives are arriving. Normally I'm forced to only be backstage and it turns out they do have much better snacks, I can't thank you enough, having an in has been fantastic. So 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'm so excited, especially because as we see, we are in the age of AI. We're also in the age of AI attacks. So things moving at machine speed, I'm super excited to see how we are solving our customers' problems. How are we protecting them? How are we doing more to make sure we give them the tools they need? There is so much to say, so much to do, all the pieces are coming together.
There were a lot of problems and stuff to get to work on but we also arrived with a lot of answers and that is what we are bringing together today. But with that, we'll get some people here, maybe check back in with us, if you don't mind. I will send it back to you.
Thank you so much, Rob, Lauren, you are so amazing as our eyes and ears out there. And back on this side, it is about to get very loud. So I think next time we head out to the two of them, they won't be able to hear a thing. But reporting with that energy, Lauren just hit it so on the head there, right? The age of agentic, as the AI era rolls up on us, so do these security challenges that come up with the AI era. We're so excited to see what people will say. But I think Rob also nailed it when he said this is where we come together as a community to fix those problems. So I see my fabulous friend and our fifth host -- I will call her first host, we've started going through the other four, saving the best for last, Michelle Cooper is there, hello my friend.
Hello Steve, it is so great to be here for my third Cisco Live and my second hosting with you all. Steve, Rob, Lauren, Z, this is an excellent community. Folks, get excited for today. Like Steve said, I'm a Splunk marketing manager and I get particularly excited about talking about the one platform advantage, how the Cisco portfolio comes together. Get excited, you will hear more about this on the keynote and then we will walk through some cool stuff here on the floor. Back to you.
And Michelle, you are a Splunk insider expert there so when it comes to that data story and that full-stack observability story, I'm doing as much as I can. So Z, one of the things that people don't really understand, what it takes to put a conference like this together. We will talk a bit more in a minute, but right now I want everybody to watch just what it takes to build this particular event out, check this.
I mean seriously, all of that effort to build this amazing space, press all the plan. Right? And I heard you had a conversation with Laura and Heather. And we will take a look at what they had to say.
So you are joining me in one of my favorite things that we get to do here at the conference. Normally we have to wait until the end of the conference if you can see what's going on behind me, we are still in construction, we do not open until tomorrow morning. But I have got the people responsible for putting all of this behind me here, Heather Henderson, Laura, oh, my friends, thank you for being here. And thank you for making time at the beginning before everything goes into chaos. How excited are you? Are you feeling amazed by all of this?
Amazed, energized and excited. It is 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. But it is really fun to see this entire year of work for the entire team coming together and coming to fruition and ready for action.
I so agree. The numbers people, exactly what Heather just said, nobody realizes, they walk in the door and it's all done.
And for the two of you on your team as well, right?
We work so well all year round with customers, partners, Cisco. Everyone is dedicated to making the best experience possible for all of the attendees coming on site and the people watching online. That we think about all year-round.
Absolutely. And it does start early, we talk about this every year, it kicks off and in San Diego it was an amazing event, incredible, we have phenomenal attendance, excitement. Back now we're back in Las Vegas and back at Mandalay Bay, what has changed? What has adapted?
Every year is different, every venue is different. 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 things beyond the classroom. We've done a lot more of that because there is so much education, it can be overwhelming. But we try to really think about the whole person and what they need. So there's lots of cafes, plenty of coffee, especially for me. But there is fun activations as well. There's a Lego station, a puzzle area. There is so much happening.
You led me exactly where I wanted to go and we talked about this earlier. Laura, keeping the human side of the conversation because that is why we are in the room together. Education can happen in different places, as can cherry pickers if you hear that in the background. Education can happen in so many different places. And when it comes down to the individual, the human being and the way we are able to interact in the room, why is it so special?
I think what makes Cisco Live so special is the fact that they are coming together to see each other, they are seeing the speakers who write the products, who build everything for them. They are thinking about how to move their careers forward, whether it's a certification class, whether they will talk to an SME. They're also making sure 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 our networking activities? We want to really think about who is coming and the amount of time they are spending here. We recognize this is a commitment that we want to celebrate them.
And there is so much that happens in those moments in between. That is the magic of being together in person. It is the networking, the connection, the human connection in this world of AI and technology. The connections that people make here, a lot of times that is why they come back. Because of those moments where they get to solve problems and also whiteboard things and work with people that are walking in their same shoes. So that they can learn and grow together and embrace the new AI eras.
You couldn't have put this better. And this is important right now. As we move deeper and deeper into AI, we overcome the confusion, we surmount where our investments go, what sort of buildouts we do. What can we actually invest in that is going to create the benefit? At the core of that is the human being. Jeetu talked about this again and again and again and I think that comes to fruition and I think that's what you're building.
That is what we think about. How can we help customers be prepared? How can we anticipate changes? It is moving so quickly. Nobody knows what the future holds but we want to make sure they are prepared for any change that is coming at them, whether it is security, whether it is networking, the new infrastructure. You will learn all about that here at Cisco Live.
Phenomenal. I will date all of us and I apologize in advance. We have been together for so long and doing this for so long and this is really fun. I go all the way back with Heather to I believe your very first event running this. We were together on that one and Laura, you came in a couple years later. But we are talking 20 years of education in this spectacular event. This is not just a one-off, this is building and building and creating something new and different, maintaining excitement, growing the Cisco community. What does that mean to you on a personal level?
I am overwhelmed and humbled that I have been on this project for 20 years. But it is 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. But what I think is really interesting is Cisco Live was born after Networkers was built. And then it became Cisco Live and we have this 20-year legacy. Now it is really this next opportunity for us because we are a global team. We are now not only Cisco Live America but we now have one team working together to bring Cisco Live to life around the globe. And it makes a big difference. I'm super excited about this next chapter and the role I am in and being able to do that with my partner Laura, we are just thrilled for the next chapter of Cisco Live and to see what we can bring to life. It is time.
You know that with the human elements. I cannot wait to come on-site, I love my team but we are all remote so we see each other and then we see the speakers and then we see the customers and we see the partners and it is just 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 we are going. It is scary but we will give you the foundation and make sure we're doing it together. We are on a journey together and that is the best part.
Such good storytelling. And it makes me go back to that fabulous arena that we were in together in Orlando when we would invite in first-timers, people who had never been to the event. We would put up slides. What is available to you here at the event? What should you look forward to if this is your first time attending as Networkers going into life at that particular point, what can you expect to be different? What did you take advantage of? The world has changed so much now. But also the number of things to take advantage of, it's like a different planet.
It is night and day from when I started on the project in 2006. And what we have today, we envisioned back then and now we have it and we're just excited to set the vision for what the next 20 years are going to be.
So set the vision for us. Tomorrow morning, the show kicks off, the event opens up. People flooding through the doors, excitement is at a really high, everybody is hugging on each other and just so grateful to be back in the room together. What can we look forward to? Status of day one.
Day one is kicked off strong. Tomorrow Chuck is presenting and talking about how we are making a difference in the world. So that really sets the tone. Think about what we're doing at Cisco and customers and partners driving things forward. And then for me, I think about the education and hands-on training. Capture the Flag, walk-in labs, all the sessions, people are here and hungry to learn and then they come down and they see the showcase. What products will make a difference for them in the future? It is just a lot to see. You've got to pace yourself. It's only Monday tomorrow!
So glad tennis shoes are finally acceptable show attire.
I think for me, I am with Laura. When those doors open tomorrow, that to me is the moment. Because there is so much activity in this show floor. So many experiences that people can have. This is where the magic happens. If you aren't in a session or in keynote, you need to be in the World of Solutions because this is where the conversations happen. The networking happens. You meet with partners, you find solutions, you find your products. You discover things. It is a world of opportunity in here. This is where they need to be.
I love that. And it is also the ecosystem of everything taking place around us. You've got IT leadership taking place going in the door, you've got the NOC and SOC of the heartbeat center of this spectacular showcase and we have never really had that kind of experience. The NOC has always been there but the NOC is sort of set to the side and is part of something you can tour through and now you walk in and there it is. It is right in front of you. You watch the SOC in action. It is so hands-on, so personal and I think it becomes individual for the guests who join us at the show.
Exactly. You will talk to the engineers who literally built a network and have been here for two weeks, they're running the network. It is like 130 terabytes of data that we will pass through the Cisco infrastructure. Rock-solid. So if you have questions, you'll find the person who literally built the network for you. And that is a really big experience here.
Always about adding something new. I need the two of you to make me a promise. Would you come back and we can do this a little bit more throughout the week? Continue setting things up, let's find these opportunities because I think everybody who tunes 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 is tuning into the broadcast, that you have given them a platform to pay attention to. Congratulations and we will do more of this, shall we?
There you go, Heather Henderson, Laura Simmons, two of the biggest driving forces behind this incredible program and this amazing event that we are so excited to share. We are less than 15 minutes from our day one keynote. I want to head back to the keynote space because Lauren White has somehow managed to track down the incredible Chief Marketing Officer, Lauren take it away.
Yes, I am here with Carrie. The Chief Marketing Officer here at Cisco. Every year here it feels like this event is taken to the next level. What are you most excited for this year?
So many things. Beyond the obvious, the keynotes and all of the announcements this week are incredible. I want to take a moment to talk about what my team has done because we actually put on the show and seriously, the whole concept of customer experience. The moment you set foot in Las Vegas and the airport, at the terminal, you will see brand-new, brand created around AI. We have been feeding the market with this positioning of us being the critical infrastructure for the AI era. But we will see what that means today. We will have our new ad campaign up on stage which we're super excited about. And by the way, always exclusively created through AI. Which is a first for us. It is stunningly beautiful, I'm really excited about it. But it really starts to play through what it means to be the critical infrastructure. What are we actually doing out in the world? And it starts to build emotional connection. We are a tech company, sometimes it's hard to have emotional connections but this ad campaign is building emotional connection with consumers around the world as to what we have been able to enable for their lives.
I feel the emotion in the room and I also -- I felt that when I got to the airport. I was like oh, my gosh, Cisco is everywhere. And if you didn't know, now you know. After ten years being here I didn't think we could keep taking it to the next level but we do. I'm so excited to be part of such an amazing team.
This momentum right now in the world for us, I think it is an unbeatable time and Cisco has earned this. 41 years of delivering and having integrity and trust with our customers. And it is continuing to do right now, is a beautiful moment.
Absolutely. I'm so honored to be here with you and be here in this moment. I feel the energy and I think we'll pass it back over to Rob. Bye guys.
You will throw to Rob in a moment but I will take it first because I'm greedy and I like to have a moment to talk with everybody. I just want to make a mention of this, Z. People say why do I need to go? I can get the entire conference just by tuning into the broadcast. You can get a great deal of it. Carrie Palin is walking around the room, Chuck is walking around the room, Jeetu is walking around the space. Where else can you get into the room and be together with these incredible thought leaders?
All of those who just named, those are people. And you cannot do any of this without people. Coming from my space, I'm a program manager with the Sustainability and Social Impact and Sustainability Office. That is our people. We cannot do anything without 3P. Carrie said something that was so true. And resonates with me. She said it's integrity and trust. Those are characteristics that are intrinsic to humans. Humans. You have to have AI with humans partnering together. And that is what we will be talking about all this week.
I love that. We will go back out to the keynote space because Rob is hanging out. Do me a favor. Briefly set up what our Cisco Champions program is.
What I will do is have this gentleman here, Simon, he reminded me that you've been part of the Cisco Champions program. Give me your full name and what you do. And I'm curious to get your perspective on this program.
My name is Simon Robert, I've been a champion for three years and I'm excited to be here today. Because we're having such a good group of champions. We learn a lot and we help each other out. And I'm very excited today for this first keynote because I think at Cisco things go fast right now and there's a lot of new technology that is being released officially for AI. But we are seeing a unifying of the technology. That is pretty impressive. Our competitors are doing that. Cisco is doing that. And honestly, clients love it.
I'm curious on the Champions program, technically speaking, you guys are all specialists in your own way. You run your own companies and this type of thing. But the idea is that you have a feedback loop within Cisco that is at a deeper level than just anybody out on the street. This allows you to integrate with your customers in a better manner with Cisco solutions. Am I roughly summarizing that correctly?
Of course. Every month we get a technical review of new technology that will be released. So we know before everybody else, the new products that will be available for a customer. So of course, to be a part of Cisco Champions, it allows us to serve our clients better.
This is one reason I encourage anyone saying, wait a minute, I think I could be a Cisco Champion, check into it. You probably can and there's a value just lurking on all the conversations you guys have. You really bring a ground-level truth to some things that I find inspiring and interesting and you're good about supporting each other and sharing each other's ability to post more often, be more engaged with the community. I love that. What is the one thing you are looking for, maybe for your team, maybe for your customers to come out of this week?
I will say to discover and learn more about Cisco Cloud Control. So far the key component we will be looking at today at this keynote, to unify everything and make sure that the network is secure. With AI, it is fun but it is dangerous. We do have companies like Cisco helping our data center and our customers of course.
Cisco is in a unique position and an incredible moat to hold all of this data from silicon all the way to the cloud and everything in between, right? And drop a picture that allow us to make better decisions and turn up the economy dial. We'll talk about that later and thank you for reaching out to me and I always appreciate talking to you and your peers. We will try to get more and with that, I'll send it back to Steve in the studio.
Bringing up that detail in that story, Cisco Champions is so important because not only the incredible experts on the technology capabilities, as we just heard they are that direct link to the customer. The way that we can listen to the customer, respond, react and give them what they need. I want to go back up to the World of Solutions one more time. Michelle is standing by right in the heart of everything, it looks like you are halfway between digital resilience, future-proof workplaces. We haven't opened up yet which is why you were just beautifully framed by yourself, and you will be in the midst of the crowd. What are you checking out?
Steve, thank you for throwing it over here. I'm here in the World of Solutions. One thing that Carrie just said is since landing in the airport, through the keynote, through the World of Solutions, you are going to get innovation and brand excitement at every step of the way. I think I mentioned this is my third Cisco Live. I have been hearing Rob, Lauren say every year, they update. They really do. I'm going to walk you through a little bit of what you can get excited about. So let's get a sense for the scale of this. We have everything from demos, lounges, activations. And let's start right here. Future-proof workplaces. We got fun things for you. Take a look at the Cisco Cafe. Call, text in a cappuccino, a latte at any time of the day and that Webex AI agent is there for you. Seeing these in action, these real-world examples along with demos is bringing it to you. We will also talk about the announcements, they are incredibly exciting. But where you see it come to life is on this World of Solutions show floor. We've got demos, we got exciting activations, like I said, we've got people to connect with. So looking at how you can get your organization at scale. So follow me with digital resilience, this is one of the three key areas as to how we like to talk about the Cisco portfolio. And one thing that I really love, of course being a product marketing manager is unifying your machine data. We talked about it in three phases. You unify that data, you fuel and contextualize it and then you activate it for AI. And let's end right here. We will end with the Cisco platform advantage. How does that portfolio come together? And the keynote, keep in mind Cisco Cloud Control. I think we'll find some incredibly exciting announcements. This is some great stuff. When you're done with the keynote, come on down here to the show floor, get your hands on some demos, talk with some of our experts and learn how you can thrive in the enterprise AI era. Steve, back to you.
Michelle, thank you for walking us through that. We are less than 4 minutes away from the keynote. I want to hop back into that space one more time. I think Rob has found a collection of champions, I will not waste any time, go for it.
Absolutely. We've got a bunch of people here, some more comfortable -- colorful than others. Let's introduce yourselves.
So you guys are Cisco Champions, some of you sporting a little bit more. But very respectable and all of it. That is the commitment. Why the cape?
It is a Cisco challenge. Taking pictures and participating in the Cisco Live challenge. I put in the work.
Look at you, now you're on camera as well. Eve Ahmed, tell us what you do and what you learned this week.
I work for a company in Denmark helping a lot of critical infrastructure. We help people getting water to their houses. I'm part of Cisco Champions so I'm sharing a lot of what I have learned through the years to the public, so that they can get something back.
You are an educator as well. Nobody can hear me, that's fine. Thank you. And Jeremy, we have met several times, what have you been up to lately and what are you looking forward to this week?
I'm looking for a lot of the roadmap sessions and just being a part of the Cisco Insiders group. And it is an awesome community where we share our knowledge and have a great time.
What is the key to getting your boss to approve you to be able to come out here consistently each time? Is it raising the value of the entire team? What is your secret?
We're pretty much a full Cisco shop. Cisco Live is pretty much my one conference a year that I get to go to and bring all the knowledge back to the company to get everything out of the Cisco products is definitely a benefit.
I will ask another question. If you get a countdown, I'll head back to the studio. But let me ask you, what are your expectations 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 customers and bringing value back -- networking is the main idea. Connecting with other people to bring those connections back so I have connections to reach out to and get knowledge from.
That is awesome. Obviously have a lot of stuff happening this week, we will learn a lot of things. Steve, I cannot wait to see what we have in the keynote but I will let you take back over control and give it back to you.
Thank you so much my friend. It is loaded back there, I'm so excited for things to kick off. Thank you for being the faces and voices on the front. We will see some of those insiders back over here on the Insiders base and theater area here in the showcase and here in the World of Solutions. And where are you now, Powell?
You found me in digital resilience. There are some really cool activations, demos, 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. This is incredible stuff. And when we say demos and real-world examples, the purpose of the solutions is to show value. How will this save you time, resources, energy, onboarding, off-loading? Making sure you are moving that reactive to proactive organization at scale. This will be really fun, come on down. Although the show floor is completely empty right now, everyone is of course waiting to hear the keynote. This will be a really fun way to get together and network with people, meet people. You will see some people out here for sure, I'm not the only one. All right Steve, thank you.
Thank you so much Michelle, I appreciate it. We will keep coming out to you. It is time my friend, how are you feeling?
I'm excited. I tell you 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 will be where we bring together the new announcements, we just heard of a Cloud Control, you will hear about Hyos on the agentic front. We have all sorts of pieces of the puzzle that start to fit together as we go from agentic conceptual to actual practical applications. I was talking with Oliver yesterday, 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 platforms, data centers we have been creating and the demand within the organizational space. I guess we're going back up to Lauren again. I thought we'd go to the keynote but this is what we will do.
And I'm here and I'm ready. If you are in the keynote and you're walking past and hearing the chatter, give notice, allow it, you can hear people excited. And I'm excited! I would say that you are missing out for sure. If you ever had a case of FOMO, this is the time to have it. Fear of missing out, that is. I will throw back to you at the studio, Steve and Z.
You are looking fabulous! So Chuck Robbins, Chief Executive Officer, Jeetu Patel, Chief Product Officer, amazing guests coming up, joining the critical infrastructure of the AI era conversation. Right? Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks will be on board,
The Senior VP and Chief Information Officer at AMD, like I said, leadership in this fast, developing era. This is not just about ambition. Ambition is not enough. Our 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 that makes the agentic era possible. How do we infuse security into the network? How do we enable more visual and operations? Doing it at machine speed. How do we transform our data into AI-ready intelligence? And how do we empower our teams to securely harness agentic AI and do it at that scale? Those are big demands that we have for our time. We're so excited to hear from the leadership on a live Cisco Live stage with these fantastic partners bringing you the entire story. Remember, hit those comments, tell us what you love. Use #CiscoLive on those socials. We are headed out.
Please welcome Chair and Executive Officer, Chuck Robbins.
Thank you. Thinking about Cisco Live, and I was thinking every year, I come on stage and I say, you know, this is the most important Cisco Live we have ever had. And this year I think it's true. Not that it hasn't been true in the past! It's been true in the past. But if you think about everything that is going on right now, this is a really important time. And I want to thank all of you in this room, all of you in the overflow areas and those online who, last year, watched some portion of this like 15 million different streams last year. And we appreciate you joining, we appreciate you spending time with us. And 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 though, I want to reflect. I want to be a little nostalgic. Not for the sake of being nostalgic, but sometimes when we look back, it helps us think about the future. And 40 plus years ago, Cisco built the first router. Who remembers what it was called? Okay, you were too young. The AGS. It was a simple idea. But the two founding professors at Stanford who were computer types wanted to communicate and they built the first router. And they thought that 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 is going on in our businesses and as you think about what you're trying to accomplish in 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 will not tell you what it was. But you will know how old I am anyways. It was fun, it was amazing. But then when it got connected, it was incredible. And the experience to celebrate it. Think about the other revolutions. I remember hosting young students with Cisco and they would come in and if you really pressed them, they didn't really know what we did. They didn't know what we built. And I would always tell them to pull out their phones and I would just say, here, I will make it very simple for you. If we didn't do what we do, that wouldn't work. And then 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, the apps, the agentic evolution, we will talk about that later. They are all nodes. And they are super powerful independently, but they are massively more powerful when they are networked. And 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, sign a multi-year security architecture... okay, it is moving faster than anything we have ever seen in our lives. And not only is the technology moving fast, we get to layer on a lot of other things around the world. The geopolitical landscape is complicated, we have inflation primarily due to the war in the Middle East. We have political division, polarization, the world's dynamic, at a time where we have a sense of urgency. There's a lot of uncertainty. And it is a bit chaotic. Aren't you glad you came? But you think about it. We are in a full-out sprint. Many of you entered the room maybe half an hour ago. But you realize that the world we live in today, we would all be scrambling. An attacker may have taken down some major system. Some political statement could have caused a seismic shift in the global 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, government, enterprise, partner. Actually deliver the right technology, with the appropriate security, with the right workforce which has never been more important. And despite all of the uncertainty and despite all of the fear, I fundamentally believe that together, we will meet this moment because all the people in this room and the people watching online today. Because as we look at what has to be accomplished, many of us have been here before. There was similar uncertainty with the rise of the internet. I remember when some folks and a company I worked for a long time ago said we are never going to run IBM mainframe traffic off that little junior network you are building. Where there will never be an internet connection with this organization, that is just crazy. Do you realize the risk we would have if that occurred? People were fearful. People were distrustful. People didn't understand it. And all of you or your predecessors led the way. I look at where we are now. Everybody talks about whether we are in a bubble. And I go, I don't know. And they talk about whether Weather.com was a bubble. I go, okay. Does it matter? The winners emerged, the people in this room embraced the technology and we continued to benefit from everything that happened during that time. And you are the architect of that and you'll be the architect of how AI reshapes industries, organizations. Whether you're designing factory systems, you are making classrooms more personalized and productive, you're helping science analyze data and advance disease cures, transforming customer experience, that is what you are doing. You're 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 it's exactly what I have been describing. The power of the network brings all of it together, 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. And collectively, I believe 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 networks and everything? Here we are again. And by the way, you think they're 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 got to be modernizing my technology infrastructure today, I got to make my network more resilient, I have to 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. And Jeetu will talk a lot about that, I'm sure. From silicon, to the platform, to security, observability. To help you implement the infrastructure that you need to for your organization to take advantage of this wave. Today I'm really proud. A few years ago, we talked about how we were going to increase the pace of innovation and the teams have done just that. To a point where it's hard to absorb sometimes. You're going to hear about it today. Agentic operations, infrastructure, trust the agentic workforce. You will hear more from that from Jeetu and this team. Also Cisco IQ. She will talk about that. And just a few weeks we have 1700 plus customers who are using that technology. And 90% of them have self-onboarded because of the ability to deploy the technology and understand what it is you have in your infrastructure and what you need to be thinking about to prepare not only for the AI buildout, 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 1, 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 about Jeetu and the team all week on the breakout on exactly that. And while we are delivering all of the innovation that we talk about today and this week, we have to be ready for what's ahead. And we are working on that as well. I met with many of you this year and at some point along the way, my team has met with many of you. We talk to governments around the world, heads of state, U.S. governments. And the questions they are asking has changed. Just think. If we had hosted Cisco Live 90 days ago, we wouldn't talk about models. Think about that. 90 days ago, we were all talking about memory. That was the thing everyone wanted to talk about. But as soon as models were released, we stopped talking about memory. Maybe not completely, but we shifted. And this is a CEO-level discussion. There's an understanding of the criticality of what is going on here. And the questions that are being asked. I'm the chair of the Business Roundtable of the United States which is 240 companies in America. And we are hosting calls with CEOs who want to learn about models, want to understand what they should be doing in their organizations. How do we secure and govern AI? How to protect data? How we trust autonomous systems? How do we move fast while balancing risk? These are things that you are all thinking through because they are all walking in your office. Probably daily. What progress have we made since yesterday? What are we thinking? How will it impact us? And for many of you, you are dealing with a lot of this in an uncertain way, because you haven't got your hands on some of this new technology. There are three key areas and one is obviously cyber defense. AI changes the speed of defense. The correlation is that it is empowering our adversaries at a pace we have never seen in our careers. It has become very real with models like these. And my team and others in the industry have said this, so this is not an original statement from me. But we all have to remember, these models are as bad today as they are ever going to be. So 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 a high-powered defense and to stop AI-powered threats. And the most striking thing is it is not necessarily the technology, it is the implications. The business implications, the societal implications, the governmental implications. Those are the discussions we are having. We got access to GPT-5.5 Cyber and the open-sourced Foundry 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 would play out when you start working with these models. I encourage all of you to start looking at that. We really need to work together and think about how we defend against these emerging threats and how we make sure that we build 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. And 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 the architecture and how we defend it will have to fundamentally change and you will hear more on that from Jeetu today. Now we originally were supposed to have the White House National Cyber Director here with us today. But 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 you ensure that your infrastructure is prepared. How we make sure we don't have tech debt. And our team put out a document called Shields Up. And 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 they realize that every customer hasn't had access to some of these models. But there are a lot of things that 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 which shares that in the last eight weeks, we scanned 1.8 billion lines of code in 25 different programming languages. Before these models, that probably would have 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 just keep getting better. This is one of the positive benefits. We are finding things and will put patches and explain how we approach patches as we move forward and I would encourage all of you to take a look at that as well. We spent a lot of time talking to governments. We talked to governments in the U.S., we talk to governments around the world. And what we're hearing from governments around the world, this really started in Europe, was this desire for sovereign infrastructure. Where you want us to meet your evolving needs around the sovereignty of data, sovereignty of AI, sovereignty of cloud services. And this means that we have to change how we operate to actually be able to deliver for you. And it is not one-size-fits-all. I wish it was, it would be a lot easier. But 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. And it is not consistent, I can assure you. But we are working hard, we launched sovereign critical and researcher portfolios. Primarily targeted at Europe early on. But we're hearing this in Asia, hearing this in other parts of the world. The need for AI-ready infrastructure with trust-based licensing. We will help you build up architecture with more control, more visibility, 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 more shifting in computing, it will be great because it will have the power to solve complex challenges fast. You think about combining quantum with AI and you think about attacking chronic diseases, what is 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, 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, software and 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 are going to be there for you. Now I want to highlight -- we talked about the network being more powerful than the node. And that applies to the organization, and the people in this room watching remotely, watching virtually. There are massive challenges that we can solve together. And it comes back to one idea. And that is trust. And you are trying to define where trust, security, governance and judgment lives in a high-powered world. And 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 with you. 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 1, prepare our technology infrastructure for the challenges that are going to be coming at us. But secondly, 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 will hear a lot of this over the next day or two. But it talks about how one of our major enterprise customers is actually leveraging technology for the customer experience and how these AI waves -- think about that. Please join me in welcoming to the stage, Brian Niccol, the CEO of Starbucks.
Thanks for having me. It makes me feel good, we sell coffee.
By the way, I had two cups this morning.
Have any people drink Starbucks this morning? Perfect. We will do a commercial for them. Get these people to be better customers for you. Brian and I have known each other for a reasonably long time. And when you decided to make this change, we joked about how your challenges were going to be different. Maybe we can get into that. But AAA was rocketing, what you were doing was incredible. But you have led multiple companies into transition and how things change. I'd say you're doing some excellent work now at Starbucks. When you're looking at a company that you haven't been a part of, how do you orient yourself to this completely new organism? I know if somebody came in and took my job here, number 1 they would do a lot better, but it would be really complicated. You'd become a kid to learn all of this complex stuff. How do you do that?
Look, in the case of Starbucks and some of the other businesses, obviously they're customer-first businesses, consumer businesses that you first have to understand how you do a great job for your customer. And then in the case of Starbucks, obviously because it is a retail business, we have to understand what we do to make sure our partners, who are serving our customers, are also set up for success. So you start there. And basically as you did with the organization, there's a lot of learning. And you have to be open to the idea of doing a lot of learning. Before necessarily you start sharing what you want everybody to go do. And so I've taken the approach of, you got to come in with a strong point of view, what you believe the company needs for the customer, our coffeehouse leaders or our partners. And then you've got to take the time to make sure you listen and learn how the organization gets work done, how decisions are made and figure out what is the most efficient way to get the right outcomes for our customers.
