Welcome to the Agentic Era: Humans + Agents Achieving More, Together

The world’s biggest challenges—whether transforming businesses, advancing science, or addressing societal issues—are too complex for humans or AI to solve alone. The real magic happens when the two collaborate, combining human ingenuity with AI speed and precision. Welcome to the agentic era, a groundbreaking new chapter where humans and intelligent agents join forces to achieve more than ever before.  

From apps to agents 

For decades, we’ve relied on application-based software to handle tasks. But the paradigm is shifting. We’re moving beyond apps into a world powered by agentic AI—autonomous systems capable of understanding, acting, and learning in complex environments. This agentic evolution is redefining how we interact with technology. Agents are more than just AI tools—they’re your trusted collaborators. 

Here’s what sets agents apart: 

• Autonomous action: Instead of passively responding to commands, agents jump into action to complete tasks end-to-end. 
• Memory and context: Powered by large language models (LLMs) and fine-tuned for specific applications and expertise, agents remember past interactions and operate with a deep understanding of context. 
• Scale: Soon, there will be tens of millions of agents working across industries, solving problems faster and more intelligently than ever before. 

While the future is agentic, the rise of agents brings new challenges for operational simplicity. How do we manage and orchestrate this vast new ecosystem? The answer: We need AI solutions to solve AI problems. 

Reimagining management in the agentic era 

Now that we’ve established that agents are capable of autonomous decision making, deep understanding, and broader scaling, we need to fundamentally rethink the way we manage and govern them. To fully harness their potential, we need a new kind of management console—one tailored for the agentic era. 

The effective management of agents rests on three core principles: 

• Human in the loop: The agentic era isn’t about humans or agents working in isolation—it’s about partnership, and collaboration remains key. Humans bring judgment, creativity, and strategy, while agents contribute speed, precision, and scale. 
• Cross-domain context: To operate effectively, agents must bridge silos, drawing insights from data across different applications and systems. 
• Purpose-built: Agents need to be specialized. Purpose-built models with deep domain expertise ensure they excel at their assigned tasks. 

These agents further need a new operational framework—what we call AgenticOps—designed to orchestrate, optimize, and scale the collaboration between humans and intelligent agents in this rapidly evolving ecosystem. 

Introducing Cisco AI Canvas 

To meet this pivotal moment and bring AgenticOps to life, I’m excited to introduce AI Canvas—an industry-first, generative UI shared workspace designed to redefine how teams and agents work and win together. AI Canvas leverages a multi-data, multi-agent system integrated with Cisco AI Assistant to enhance decision making and analytics, enabling seamless collaboration among AI agents for real-time insights and autonomous recommendations.   

• Team collaboration and IT troubleshooting: Whether it’s solving IT issues or driving innovation, AI Canvas enables troubleshooting, automation, and execution across the whole stack. AI Canvas lets you explore and monitor together, as well as diagnose and act—applying changes in real time. 
• No more silos: By integrating data across networking, security, collaboration, and the data center, AI Canvas keeps everyone in the loop, even as data evolves. 
• Deep network model: Purpose-built for networking, fine-tuned on 40+ years of expertise, and constantly evolving, Cisco’s Deep Network Model is the most advanced networking LLM in the industry and the engine that powers AI Canvas.   

A new era of possibility 

The agentic era is here—and it’s reshaping how we solve problems, make decisions, and innovate. By bringing humans and agents together, we can unlock new levels of productivity, creativity, and impact. Let’s embrace this future and build it responsibly, ensuring that as our tools grow smarter, so does our ability to collaborate and lead with purpose. 

Welcome to the agentic era. Together, we’re just getting started. 

Many of the products and features mentioned are still in development and will be made available as they are finalized, subject to ongoing evolution in development and innovation. The timeline for their release is subject to change. 

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