WebexOne - CX Today

Cisco Outlines Strategy to Help Customers Struggling With AI Adoption

Francesca Roche — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 17:29:21 +0000

Cisco has revealed its customer-centric strategy to improve the overall viewpoint of customer experience.

In its quarterly report on Wednesday, the technology company revealed several high-value investments in its AI products.

In the earnings call, Cisco emphasized that this rapid growth in AI product adoption indicates a rising demand for secure networking.

Customer-Centric Strategy

Over the past year, Cisco’s quarterly results have demonstrated high levels of growth after several previous declines, and it is now reaping the benefits of its increased customer spending and investment.

This has included various AI products and suites, as well as investments in data centers to support the demands for AI-driven workloads and cloud networking.

However, the attention has turned towards its customers and their willingness to adopt these products into their workflows.

Despite this growth in demand, a Cisco study revealed that only a third of companies are certain that their IT infrastructure can safely integrate their AI projects, which Cisco views as favorable for them.

With its extensive networking portfolio, the company believes it is on track to deliver the critical infrastructure to its customer enterprises, enabling them to adapt to the AI era.

Modernizing Customer Experience

In response to the study, Cisco has acknowledged that many companies are still far off from where they’ve been expected to be with AI.

Charles Robbins, CEO and Chairman at Cisco, recognized the readiness gap between planning and execution when it came to adopting AI.

He said:

“We know many customers still have a lot of work to do to ensure they have the modern, scalable, secure networking infrastructure to support their AI goals.”

Cisco has already begun its move toward a modernized customer experience through various upgrades and expansions, allowing for simpler large-scale AI deployments.

This has included its global network and infrastructure upgrades, allowing Cisco to enhance its enterprise switching, routing, and Wi-Fi to conduct large-scale AI and data-intensive workloads with fast, scalable, and secure performance.

From this, Cisco expects its enterprise customers to switch from legacy networking equipment to its newer systems, collectively spending billions as part of its multiyear, multibillion-dollar refresh opportunity.

With global data expansion, Cisco has established numerous regional data centers worldwide, as well as a European customer-based sovereign critical infrastructure portfolio, focusing on a global scale-up with region-focused deployments.

By supplying software and cloud-native transformation, customer enterprises can also receive automated network surveillance and deliver secure, scalable customer experiences.

In addition, Cisco offers end-to-end security integrated into the network, supporting modernized infrastructure for reliable and capable traffic pattern management.

Workloads with Agentic AI

Cisco’s earnings call reported a surge in agentic AI activity, with the number of queries through agentic AI measuring at 25x higher in network traffic than chatbots.

And demand for AI has increased with it, with Cisco expecting AI infrastructure to generate $3BN in revenue for fiscal year 2026.

A contributing factor is the AI workloads needing the necessary models and infrastructure to process locally. To support this, Cisco announced the release of its Unified Edge last week, as part of its strategy to process AI at a speedier and secure level.

This platform offers integration for compute, networking, and storage into one system, enabling enterprises to receive real-time predictions and decisions for secure AI management.

Another recent release is the Cisco Data Fabric architecture, which allows for the unification and management of various machine data sources, enabling companies to create more innovative AI models, adding to Cisco’s value when it comes to technology investments.

Cisco Webex Winter 2025

Cisco has also published its Webex Winter 2025 press release, detailing its recent updates in CX technologies.

Some key results from the season include: AI translation capabilities now expanding to 120 languages for meeting summaries; its regional cloud infrastructure locations such as the UK, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the UAE; a 3D workspace designer for visual blueprints; and AI Assistant for Calling for live and post-meeting summaries.

These help to enable higher productivity levels, improve global coverage, and drive flexible working systems, with Webex allowing customers to use meeting rooms, calls, and contact center through one platform.

However, not all these features are available for deployment as of yet.

In conversation with CX Today, Tim Banting, Head of Research at Techtelligence, discussed Cisco’s decision to strengthen its overall CX stack across AI, global scale, and device flexibility.

He said, “The move aligns with current Techtelligence buying-intent data showing a 19% rise in enterprise research around UC productivity and automation, involving more than 29,000 companies actively investigating process and workflow automation in communications suites.

“However, Cisco faces an execution challenge. Several key AI and automation capabilities remain in the “coming soon” category, creating a perception gap in a market that rewards immediacy and credibility.

“Techtelligence data shows that buyers are rewarding vendors delivering deployable automation and measurable risk controls now – not future roadmap promises.

He added: “For CX buyers, the practical value lies in features that are globally available and compliance-ready today. The platform consolidation trend is undeniable.

“Cisco’s success will hinge on whether it can deliver AI responsibly, at scale, and ahead of rivals who are already reshaping perception around “secure AI collaboration.”

Cisco Key Earnings Results

After enterprise customers’ strong demand for its AI products, Cisco has risen above estimates for the quarter.

Cisco’s revenue is up to $14.9BN, increasing 8% year-over-year
Its product orders are up 13% year-over-year, with growth across all markets and geographies
AI infrastructures currently stand at $1.3BN
Service revenue increased by approximately 2%
Product revenue increased by approximately 10%

Cisco Introduces the Webex Contact Center for Salesforce

Francesca Roche — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 19:53:44 +0000

During Webex One 2025, Cisco launched the Webex Contact Center for Salesforce.

While the announcement got lost in the frenzy around the event, it’s significant in unifying CCaaS and CRM platforms.

The integration, built through the Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS Pilot program, embeds voice and digital channels from the Webex Contact Center into Salesforce Agentforce Service (formerly Service Cloud).

As a result, every interaction can be managed directly inside Salesforce, with critical conversational data consolidated in Agentforce Service, and – in many cases – filtering into Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud). That’s powerful for boosting AI projects across the front office, with mutual customers also able to tap Webex AI agents and Agentfore.

Other advantages include a simplified agent experience, as reps Alt+Tab less as they switch the systems, and reduced admin burden, with one central customer service platform.

Honing in on the first of those two advantages, especially, Vinod Muthukrishnan, VP & COO for Webex Customer Experience, told CX Today:

The two worlds have come together. Agents, on average, are looking at a dozen systems just to do their job, and we need to get out of their way and allow them to do what humans do best: lean in, pay attention, and give fabulous service.

Alongside Cisco, AWS, Five9, and Genesys have announced similar integrations with Salesforce Agentforce Service.

Nevertheless, this is still significant, as Cisco rapidly expands its cloud contact center install base.

Much of that stems from its on-premise install base of large-scale, on-premise enterprises. Yet, it’s also winning customers outside of that, thanks to strong word-of-mouth swirling the Webex Contact Center.

Many of these customers and prospects will have installed Agentforce Service, with 60,000+ companies leveraging the app, making it the most widely-utilized CRM solution.

As they plot out their plans around the app, Cisco can now these businesses a tighter integration alongside a reputation for doing “big” deployments well (per its recent Maersk case study).

Given this, the offering is an important integration for Cisco and a nice step forward for Salesforce as it builds the future of connected CCaaS-CRM systems.

As Matthew Kravitz, Product Manager at Salesforce, stated:

It’s wonderful that we’re able to take deep CRM experiences and open them up to Bring Your Own Channels, Bring Your Own Telephony… What’s included in this architecture, customers are going to be joyous about it.

The Webex Contact Center for Salesforce is now available for early access customers, along with general public availability opening in Q1 2026.

Elsewhere, Salesforce continued its momentum in the CCaaS earlier this week by partnering with PWC as it launched an “Agentic AI-Powered Contact Center”. That is just one of many major announcements from Dreamforce 2025.

Meanwhile, Cisco made many more headlines at Webex ONE, including the release of an Auto-QA solution to monitor hybrid human-AI teams and a new AI Agent Studio.

Inside WebexOne 2025: Cisco’s Big CX and AI Announcements Explained

Rob Scott — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 14:19:49 +0000

Standing in the sunshine outside the Marriott Marquis on San Diego Marina, with palm trees swaying and thousands of attendees weaving through the conference center in search of their next big session, one thing became clear at this year’s WebexOne: AI isn’t just helping anymore; it’s starting to think for itself.

For CX leaders, that means a new generation of agentic AI—intelligent systems that don’t just assist employees but anticipate customer needs and take meaningful action. Welcome to the age of Connected Intelligence.

1) Webex AI Quality Management: One Console for Human and AI Performance

Cisco unveiled Webex AI Quality Management (QM), a supervisor tool that unifies coaching and improvement across both human agents and AI agents in a single platform. It combines AI-assisted scoring, real-time insights, and personalized coaching for humans with actionable recommendations and optimization for AI agents—all natively in Webex Contact Center. Planned GA: Q1 2026.

Why it matters: Moves beyond compliance checklists to continuous experience improvement and de-risks AI adoption with a single supervisory view.

2) Webex AI Agent & Cisco AI Assistant: From Assistive to Agentic

Webex AI Agent enables autonomous and guided self-service, tapping tools, systems, and experts as needed—created and tuned in the new AI Agent Studio. Cisco AI Assistant boosts live-agent productivity with suggested responses, real-time transcription, and summaries mid-call and at wrap-up. These are available for cloud and on-prem customers, with a beta for 50 + languages targeted for Q4 2025.

Starting in Q1 2026, Webex plans support for multi-agent collaboration via A2A and Model Context Protocol (MCP)—so Webex AI Agents can interoperate with third-party agents and external data sources under enterprise controls.

Why it matters: Faster, more accurate resolutions with AI that can act, not just advise—while preserving governance.

3) Salesforce: Orchestrating Journeys Inside Service Cloud

As part of Salesforce’s BYO CCaaS program, Webex Contact Center for Salesforce deepens the integration so organizations can orchestrate experiences using combined Webex and CRM data. Interactions can be managed inside Salesforce via Service Cloud Voice and Bring Your Own Channel, powered by Webex AI and Agentforce. Early access now; planned GA Q1 2026.

Why it matters: Reduces swivel-chair workflows and gives agents contextual, AI-enriched insights where they already work.

Watch: Webex and Salesforce Redefine CX Integration

4) AWS Lex: Smarter Virtual Agents, Available Now

Integration with Amazon Lex (the same tech behind Alexa) lets teams build natural voice and chat interfaces for Webex Contact Center and Contact Center Enterprise. Use cases include AI receptionist capabilities to deflect / route calls, improved intent recognition, and acceleration of live-agent resolutions. Available now.

Why it matters: Accelerates self-service design and improves containment while maintaining a natural customer experience.

5) Epic: Connecting EHR Context to the Contact Center

Epic integration brings EHR context into customer interactions so care teams and agents can deliver tailored, compliant support inside Epic. Available now.

Why it matters: Reduces handoffs and rework in healthcare journeys where context, compliance, and empathy are critical.

Read: How Cisco and Epic Are Transforming Patient Engagement

6) Webex AI Quality Management in Context

For those tracking the broader AI strategy across Cisco’s collaboration and customer experience stack, UC Today’s coverage dives deeper into the company’s Connected Intelligence theme and agentic vision.

7) Market Expansion: India and KSA on the Roadmap

Cisco plans to expand the Webex ecosystem with locally hosted solutions for performance and compliance. In Q2 2026, Cisco targets Webex Calling data centers in Mumbai and Chennai and the launch of Webex Contact Center services in India, with future expansion planned for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Why it matters: Local hosting improves latency, call quality, and regulatory alignment for global CX programs.

More coverage: WebexOne 2025: Connected Intelligence Takes Centre Stage

Leadership Perspective

“You win or lose your customers every single day through the quality of the experiences you deliver. AI is the key to delivering amazing customer experiences at scale.” — Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco

Bottom Line for CX Leaders

Unify oversight: Manage human and AI performance in one supervisory plane with Webex AI QM.
Operationalize agentic AI: Deploy AI Agent and AI Assistant to act, summarize, and follow up securely.
Integrate the journey: Use Salesforce, AWS Lex, and Epic to collapse data silos and remove friction.
Prove value fast: Target containment, cycle times, and CSAT with production-grade use cases.
Plan for scale: Leverage multi-agent interoperability (A2A, MCP) and regional hosting to grow responsibly.

Ryan Reynolds at WebexOne 2025: Hollywood, Business, and CX with a Side of Sarcasm

Rob Scott — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:47:41 +0000

By Day 3 of Cisco’s WebexOne, most tech execs were running on coffee, jargon, and blind optimism. Enter Ryan Reynolds: actor, investor, Wrexham football club saviour, gin merchant, mobile mogul, and now… keynote closer. Forget another demo of AI widgets — Cisco brought in Deadpool himself to torch the stage with humour, honesty, and a few life lessons that felt surprisingly on point for the WebexOne crowd.

Hollywood Meets the Helpdesk

Reynolds kicked off with a self-own (classic). When asked which role best prepared him for business, he deadpanned: “Green Lantern. Regret builds character.” Cue laughter — but also, point taken. CX leaders know the sting of failure. He spun it into a bigger truth: failure isn’t the villain, wasted failure is. Or in his words: “Make mistakes, just don’t waste them.”

If that doesn’t sound like CX transformation in a nutshell — where customer journeys are patched together like Frankenstein until someone admits the IVR is torture — nothing does.

Constraint is the Superpower

Reynolds’ biggest theme? Constraints. He’s obsessed with them. Budget cuts, tight deadlines, scrappy marketing — all the stuff enterprise leaders complain about. “Constraint forces you to think asymmetrically,” he said, before mocking studios that throw 50,000 CGI horses at a battle scene just because they can.

For CX pros, that’s the reminder that throwing more tech at a problem won’t fix the experience. Sometimes it’s about doing more with six horses — or in our world, six well-designed customer journeys.

Gut vs. Data: Fight!

Reynolds dismantled the myth of data-driven creativity:

“Our biggest viral hits? Data would’ve killed them. Gut will never go away.”

That’s a call-out to every CX leader obsessing over dashboards while ignoring the human. Numbers matter — but instincts, stories, and emotional connection win loyalty. And that’s what your customers remember.

Deadpool on AI (and Nutella)

Yes, he went there.

“AI is like Nutella for breakfast — too much and you’re going to feel sick.”

Cue knowing nods across the hall. He loves AI (it cleaned up his ADR when a marching band sabotaged a shoot), but he warned that optimisation without reflection kills originality.

For CX? Same lesson. AI chatbots, agent-assist, voice analytics — great. But if you don’t stop to actually listen to your customer, you’ll optimise yourself into oblivion.

Wrexham, Community, and CX

Reynolds’ most heartfelt moment came when he pivoted to Wrexham AFC:

“It’s not about me or Rob. It’s about the town.”

His point? True loyalty is born when people feel ownership. Fans became storytellers, authors of their own redemption arc.

CX leaders, take note: stop broadcasting, start co-authoring. Give your customers the pen, and they’ll write the loyalty story for you.

The Finale: Deadpool Meets Customer Experience

Reynolds’ keynote was part comedy set, part MBA crash course. But under the sarcasm, the message was deadly serious:

Don’t waste mistakes.
Constraints fuel creativity.
Storytelling trumps analytics.
Tech is a tool, not a religion.
Community beats ego, every time.

In other words: business, Hollywood, and CX all run on the same script — humanity, humour, and the guts to break a few rules.

WebexOne 2025 Coverage

Connected Intelligence and the End of the Drudge Work, Says Nate Brown

Rob Scott — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:15:21 +0000

There’s something refreshing about speaking to Nate Brown, Head of Education & Enablement at Metric Sherpa and Co-Founder of CX Accelerator. While many analysts at tech conferences find themselves lost in slides and buzzwords, Brown prefers to start with a question that sounds almost uncomfortably simple: “What’s really going on for the people in all of this?”At WebexOne 2025, where Connected Intelligence was the banner headline, the temptation for vendors was to sprint straight into the machine-driven future: agent-to-agent protocols, predictive AI, and platforms promising to make work frictionless. Brown, however, pauses and considers what that actually means in practice — for the humans at the frontline.

“Quick parts quick, low parts meaningful. Automate the drudge work, yes. But what do we earn from that? The chance to let our people use their gifts, not just resolve tickets but proactively guide customers to success.” – Nate Brown

Beyond the Buzzwords

It’s a strangely radical thought in a week dominated by AI-first demos. While Cisco’s announcements around AI Quality Management and AI-to-AI collaboration had the room buzzing, Brown sees the real story as one of balance: elevating human capability by taking the friction out of the mundane.

There’s also something strikingly candid about Cisco’s position at this year’s event. Rather than claiming to have solved the future, Webex leaders leaned into honesty about the disruption underway. In Brown’s words:

“It’s refreshing. They’re being vulnerable about the realities. This technology truly disrupts business as usual, and we have to talk about that.” – Nate Brown

The Organisational Shift Ahead

That disruption isn’t just technological; it’s structural. Brown foresees organisational rethinks in the year ahead — the blurring of IT service management and CX, the convergence of sales and support, and the inevitable leadership reshuffles required to embed AI across workflows.

Yet he’s far from pessimistic. For Brown, the idea of Connected Intelligence isn’t simply about silicon and servers — it’s about trust, openness, and inclusion. Webex’s willingness to invite in Zoom, Epic, and Microsoft — not exactly natural bedfellows — is, in his view, a “huge” moment for interoperability.

From Fear to Fulfilment

The real question, then, isn’t whether AI will change the game. It’s whether organisations are ready to evolve their people, processes, and priorities to make the most of it. Brown’s advice to CX leaders? Take fear seriously, give employees clear pathways to upskill, and remind them what their role looks like after AI has stripped away the noise.

Or as he puts it with a wry smile:

“Don’t just ask what’s being taken away. Ask what’s being given back.”

More WebexOne 2025 News

Why the Future of AI in CX Depends on Leaders Who Can Say ‘No’

Rob Scott — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:04:12 +0000

The business problem: front-line agents are drowning in tabs, toggles, and tool fatigue. Leaders want faster resolution, deeper relationships, and lower costs—but complexity is stealing the oxygen from great service. Meanwhile, AI hype risks turning strategy into demo theatre.

At WebexOne 2025 in San Diego, we sat down with Vinod Muthukrishnan, VP & COO, Webex Customer Experience (Cisco), and Matt Kravitz, VP of Product & Chief Customer Officer, Salesforce Service Cloud, to probe a simple question in true journalistic fashion: will a tighter Cisco Webex Customer Experience–Salesforce partnership finally give agents one screen, one truth—and give leaders a safer on-ramp to agentic AI?

Start with People, Then the Platform

Both leaders argue that while AI is accelerating, humans still handle the vast majority of interactions. Complexity—more than call volume—is the silent killer of CX. The immediate prize: reduce swivel-chair work, surface context at the moment of need, and let people lean into conversations that matter.

“As the simple stuff gets automated, what’s left are the complex, meaningful engagements. That’s where people shine.”

— Matt Kravitz, Salesforce Service Cloud

Connected Intelligence in Practice

The partnership centres on deep CRM + contact centre integration: think Salesforce’s data, automation, and service console fused with Webex Contact Center’s telephony, routing, and channels. For the rep who lives in Salesforce, calls and channels appear natively; for operations, journeys and policies stay coherent across systems.

One workspace: reduce context switching and cognitive load.
One truth: unify customer data, history, and next best action.
One path to AI: introduce automation where it helps, not where it hurts.

“AI is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a team sport—milestone by milestone with customers, guardrails, and real value.”

— Vinod Muthukrishnan, Cisco Webex

Agentic AI: From Demos to Deployment

It has never been easier to build a slick AI agent demo—and never harder to deploy responsibly at scale. The pair frame agentic AI as an operating model, not a gadget: start with truth (your data), choose the right metrics (customer outcomes over “containment”), and phase automation where it augments people.

Could vs Should: just because you can automate a step doesn’t mean you should—especially for moments that benefit from human empathy (e.g., cancellations or complex changes).
Good vs Bad Deflection: remove friction for trivial tasks, but invite conversations when there’s value in the dialogue.
Guardrails First: safety, security, and governance are prerequisites, not patches.

What the Integration Means Day to Day

For agents: fewer systems, richer context, faster time-to-resolution. For leaders: clearer visibility from marketing to service, cleaner data for AI, and a pragmatic runway to automate the right journeys in the right order.

Top Tips for CX & Tech Leaders in 2025

Master the basics: stabilise data, journeys, and KPIs before scaling AI.
Apply the “Could vs Should” test: prioritise human-in-the-loop where trust and value are at stake.
Fix agent experience first: a unified console beats a dozen dashboards.
Instrument outcomes: optimise for customer value, not containment.
Phase-in agentic AI: milestone by milestone, with governance baked in.

More WebexOne 2025 News

No More Boxes: Webex’s Open Approach to Customer Experience Integration

Rob Scott — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 23:02:11 +0000

Walking the halls of WebexOne in San Diego, you’re struck by two things: the sheer volume of noise about AI, and the quiet reality that most enterprises are still wrestling with the same old demons. Rising costs, fragmented systems, frustrated customers. It’s the business equivalent of being stuck in an airport queue — too many handoffs, not enough clarity, and a nagging suspicion that no one’s really in charge.

So, when we sat down with Vinod Muthukrishnan, VP & COO of Webex Customer Experience, we wanted to ask: is all this “Connected Intelligence” branding just marketing gloss, or is something genuinely changing?

The Challenges Haven’t Changed – They’ve Accelerated

Vinod didn’t start with shiny new features. He started with the business problem.

“The challenges haven’t changed — they’ve just accelerated. Customers still want intuitive, human experiences. The danger is we keep throwing more technology in the middle and make things harder, not easier.”

This is the battleground for modern enterprises: supervisors want visibility, agents want support, and customers want empathy. Adding more dashboards isn’t the answer.

AI Quality Management: Coaching, Not Surveillance

Cisco’s new AI Quality Management is positioned as a re-imagining, not an incremental add-on. Supervisors can now identify real-time coaching opportunities, while agents receive helpful nudges without feeling like they’re under constant surveillance.

“It’s not a new module — it’s the foundation of a new way of managing quality.”

AI Agents as Orchestrators

Webex’s AI Agent and Cisco AI Assistant are designed less like bots and more like conductors. They don’t just answer questions, they orchestrate workflows, spot issues, and smooth over the cracks between different systems.

In Vinod’s words, this is about creating a “symphony” of customer interactions — where human and AI work together seamlessly.

Open, Not Boxed In

Vinod was quick to emphasise Webex’s open stance. Rather than locking customers into a Cisco-only ecosystem, Webex is expanding integrations with Salesforce, Amazon Lex, and Epic.

“We don’t believe in boxes. We believe in open, seamless, collaborative platforms.”

This commitment to interoperability reflects Cisco’s broader Connected Intelligence theme — making technology invisible to the customer while unifying fragmented journeys for the enterprise.

What’s Next: Humanising AI

Looking ahead, Vinod said the next chapter is about making AI more human. That includes expanding into 50 new languages, enabling complex multi-agent orchestration, and making backend complexity “delightfully invisible” to customers.

If Cisco can deliver on that promise, then “Connected Intelligence” won’t just be a conference slogan — it could become the missing link in creating seamless, empathetic, AI-driven customer experiences.

More WebexOne 2025 News

Smarter Conversations, Healthier Outcomes: Valeris’ Webex Contact Center Story

Rob Scott — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 21:38:45 +0000

In this exclusive WebexOne 2025 conversation, Rob Scott from CX Today sits down with Tommy Walker, VP of Communications Technology at Valeris, to explore how one of the world’s leading healthcare services companies is transforming its contact centres with Cisco Webex Contact Center.

Tommy shares Valeris’ decade-long technology journey — from premises-based systems to the cloud — and explains why AI-first innovation was the defining factor in their move. He reveals how intelligent routing, virtual agents, and real-time AI updates are enabling Valeris to deliver smarter, more compassionate patient experiences while empowering agents to focus on what humans do best: empathy and connection.

From operational agility to agent satisfaction and patient trust, this conversation highlights how Cisco’s innovation is reshaping customer experience in healthcare and beyond.

Watch now to learn how Valeris is using cloud contact centre technology to combine AI efficiency with human empathy.

WebexOne 2025 Coverage

Cisco Doubles Down on AI-Powered Contact Center at WebexOne 2025

Rob Scott — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 16:00:39 +0000

San Diego, CA — At WebexOne 2025 this week, Cisco unveiled a series of major enhancements to its customer experience portfolio, pushing deeper into AI-powered quality management, agent assistance, and cross-industry integrations.

The announcements underscore Cisco’s strategy to position Webex Contact Center as a platform where AI agents and human agents work side by side — with supervisors given the tools to oversee both.

“AI is the key to delivering amazing customer experiences at scale”

Said Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco. “As AI and human agents increasingly collaborate, businesses need platforms designed to deliver quality experiences while moving faster than ever.”

More WebexOne 2025 Coverage

AI Quality Management: Coaching Humans and Machines

Launching in early 2026, Webex AI Quality Management (QM) gives supervisors a unified view across their workforce — whether it’s people or AI agents.

Unlike traditional tools that focus on compliance, Cisco says AI QM will deliver:

AI-assisted scoring and real-time insights
Personalised coaching for human agents
Performance optimisation recommendations for AI agents

The aim: a single platform where leaders can identify successes, reduce AI adoption risks, and continuously raise customer experience standards.

From Deployment to Impact: AI Agents at Work

Webex AI Agent and Cisco AI Assistant are now generally available for both cloud and on-premises customers, with beta support for 50+ languages arriving later this year.

Key highlights include:

Autonomous resolutions: Customers can fulfil intent through self-service, with Webex AI Agents connecting securely to third-party systems. Multi-agent collaboration via MCP and A2A protocols is planned for 2026.
Smarter human assistance: Cisco AI Assistant supports live agents with transcription, suggested responses, and wrap-up summaries.

Customers are already reporting tangible results:

CarShield has automated 66% of pre-call screenings and cut claim onboarding times by 90%.
BancFirst has modernised customer interactions through Webex integrations across departments.
Columbia Bank has used Topic Analytics to uncover call trends, with 20% of general questions identified as loan-related and routed more efficiently.

Multi-agent collaboration via MCP (Model Context Protocol) and A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocols may sound technical, but it’s one of the biggest shifts in how AI will operate inside the enterprise. Rather than working in isolation, AI agents from different vendors and platforms will be able to talk to each other, share context, and coordinate tasks securely.

For CX leaders, this means a Webex AI Agent could pull data from a Salesforce Agent, trigger an AWS Lex workflow, and even coordinate with a third-party service bot — all in real time and without human handoffs. Cisco is taking a leadership stance here by embedding multi-agent orchestration powered by AGNTCY, ensuring that these cross-agent interactions remain secure, verified, and under enterprise control.

The significance is simple: instead of buying one “super AI,” businesses can plug into an ecosystem of specialised agents that work together — accelerating automation while keeping the contact centre agile.

Salesforce, AWS and Epic: Deep Industry Integrations

Cisco also announced expanded integrations to connect the contact centre with critical business apps:

Salesforce: A deeper Service Cloud Voice integration lets organisations manage every interaction directly inside Salesforce with Webex AI.
AWS: Amazon Lex integration brings conversational AI virtual agents into Webex Contact Center and Enterprise deployments.
Epic: Healthcare providers can now surface EHR data directly within Webex Contact Center to deliver more tailored patient experiences.

Expanding to New Markets

Cisco confirmed plans to grow Webex services into India (Q2 2026) with new data centres in Mumbai and Chennai, followed by Saudi Arabia.

These expansions promise lower latency, stronger compliance, and improved reliability for enterprises operating in highly regulated markets.

Broader Themes: Connected Intelligence in Focus

Beyond the product announcements, Cisco used WebexOne 2025 to paint a bigger picture of where the contact centre is heading.

Cisco’s Connected Intelligence vision aligns with the shift from AI that merely answers to AI that acts. By enabling Webex AI Agents to interact with third-party systems and even other AI agents via open protocols, Cisco is pushing toward a model where autonomous agents can complete tasks, not just surface information.

At the same time, “AI washing” remains a growing concern for CX leaders, with many wary of inflated claims. Cisco counters this scepticism by pointing to tangible outcomes — such as CarShield’s 66% containment rate and BancFirst’s streamlined service — as proof that Webex AI is already driving measurable results. For buyers, adoption rates, production-ready integrations, and oversight tools are clear signals that substance is outweighing spin.

Finally, Cisco’s open ecosystem approach stood out. By partnering with platforms like Salesforce, AWS, and Epic, Cisco avoids forcing customers into rip-and-replace strategies. Instead, it positions Webex as an orchestration layer across existing investments, helping organisations modernise faster while lowering risk and maintaining flexibility.

Why It Matters

Now, let’s be honest — the world of AI is so thick with hype you can barely move without tripping over another vendor promising “revolutionary” bots. But what Cisco seems to be nudging us towards at WebexOne is something a little more grounded. It’s less about shiny chat interfaces and more about the plumbing — governance, integrations, and results you can actually measure.

And here’s the intriguing bit: Cisco isn’t just saying, “Here’s a clever bot.” They’re saying, “Here’s how humans and machines can be coached, scored, and stitched together into a system that doesn’t just work, but improves over time.” It’s an almost paternal vision of AI — firm but fair supervision, clear rules of engagement, and a focus on substance over sizzle.

For businesses battling fragmented systems and customers who expect the world yesterday, this feels less like marketing fluff and more like Cisco trying to step into the role of trusted referee in a very noisy game.

CX Today is reporting live from WebexOne 2025 in San Diego — stay tuned for exclusive interviews, major announcements, and in-depth analysis throughout the event.