Cisco needed to make ggeneratedive AI accessible to each single worker in a safe, cost-optimized method. To do that, Cisco IT developed an inner AI-powered assistant — purpose-built with safety — designed to raise how workers worok. Extra than simply one other software, Cisco’s inner AI assistant drives important effectivity and frictionless experiences for workers – with 73% of customers reporting elevated productiveness and a mean time financial savings of 5 hours per week.
As AI instruments like ChatGPT emerged within the market, we noticed each alternative and danger. Whereas Cisco acknowledged the transformative energy of AI and the outcomes these instruments may allow for our group, the growing utilization of public AI options additionally raised important security and safety considerations for enterprises.
Seven in ten executives consider generative AI within the enterprise introduces new safety dangers for firm knowledge and are involved about workers inputting personally identifiable data (PII), shopper knowledge, or propriety data into engines like ChatGPT and Google Gemini (Salesforce, 2023). Counting on exterior AI companies may expose delicate Cisco knowledge to public coaching units — a danger we weren’t keen to take.
We would have liked an answer that made generative AI accessible to each single worker, irrespective of the place they work from, whereas conserving Cisco knowledge safe and inner.
First steps to a safe answer
From day one, our precedence was conserving Cisco’s knowledge safe and in-house, not in another person’s coaching set. The unique structure Cisco’s Growth Crew launched in April 2023 was designed to offer a safe atmosphere for workers to soundly experiment with AI instruments. It was an enterprise-wide answer powered by Azure OpenAI fashions that maintained a dialog immediate retailer, audited prompts in actual time, and robotically redacted personally identifiable data (PII) previous to processing.
Eight months after launch, the Cisco IT design staff stepped in to reinforce person expertise and drive broader adoption. Initially, solely 30% of the workforce — primarily technical workers — have been utilizing the software. The aim was to make sure all workers, no matter their technical background, may benefit from it.
The staff took a user-centric and data-driven strategy, conducting foundational and generative analysis to completely perceive what workers wanted from this software. By leveraging all of the accessible knowledge about person ache factors, figuring out what workers have been trying to find, and evaluating it with the highest areas of friction, the design staff constructed out key use instances for the assistant. These included options to assist workers brainstorm, code, translate, generate content material, study Cisco merchandise, and extra — in the end lifting the load of on a regular basis work.
This analysis revealed that the primary factor workers have been in search of was IT assist — that means the true potential of Cisco’s inner AI assistant may very well be unlocked by way of ingesting Cisco knowledge. This grew to become the best precedence.
Shifting ahead to assist workers
We began by ingesting Cisco Folks and Communities and Assist Zone knowledge (articles, web sites, and reviews) into the software. We had Retrieval Augmented Technology (RAG) options constructed for Cisco.com and SalesConnect (inner content material portal for all gross sales assets) functions earlier. The identical capabilities have been added to the inner AI assistant as nicely to gauge the wants of gross sales customers — a target market our staff needed to handle.
With this high-quality Cisco knowledge ingested within the software, workers can use AI for assist case troubleshooting, inventive writing, knowledge evaluation, questions, and even technical duties like community monitoring and configuration. It will probably additionally streamline the onboarding course of for brand new hires by supporting laptop computer or cell phone setup and answering questions on expense reviews.
Establishing an ongoing working mannequin
Cisco’s inner AI assistant was constructed for fast integration, strong safety, and actionable insights, all at a worldwide scale. That is supported by an ongoing working mannequin the place our staff repeatedly displays person suggestions and delivers options with agility, creating an iterative, full-circle course of.
To design an inner assistant greatest suited to Cisco’s world workforce, we developed a layered structure round these elements:
- AI agent, MCP, and enterprise search platform: The AI Agent and Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) platform hosts all of the AI brokers and MCP servers developed utilizing open-source AI frameworks. Its modular, plug-and-play structure offers the Enterprise AI/ML engineering staff the power to onboard new AI brokers and search functions with out operational overhead. The platform additionally gives LLM-as-a-service and RAG-as-a-service providing to over 4300+ groups throughout Cisco.
- Enterprise AI agent registry and MCP registry: This registry permits workers to register and join all distant AI brokers and distant MCP servers developed by groups throughout the enterprise with standardized agent and MCP safety, agentic protocols and entitlements in order that workers can securely entry this related agentic mesh from the inner assistant.
- Hybrid multi-cloud mannequin and AI agent orchestration: Utilizing a federated strategy, our inner AI assistant connects to a number of Cisco AI brokers and main AI fashions equivalent to Azure OpenAI, Claude, Google Gemini and Cisco’s inner giant language mannequin — Deep Community Mannequin. The platform robotically routes every request to the very best accessible AI mannequin for deployments primarily based on workload, latency, reliability, and use-case. This ensures customers at all times get quick, correct outcomes.
- Constructed-in safety, knowledge governance, and observability: Safety is woven into each layer of the software, guaranteeing our office stays resilient in opposition to evolving threats whereas enabling innovation. Cisco’s AI Protection guardrails are used to scan person prompts and MCP server instruments for malicious code and hidden or ignored threats.
- Superior knowledge operations and AI-driven enterprise affect: Area particular AI brokers have been developed to allow clever automation of enterprise processes by leveraging AI prepared enterprise knowledge.
This platform, alongside our ongoing working mannequin, allows us to deploy new options and effectively and constantly refine our roadmap — guaranteeing we keep on the forefront of AI innovation.
“Designed with a security-first mindset, our inner AI assistant has highly effective guardrails that robotically detect and redact delicate knowledge earlier than it’s despatched to a public AI mannequin — giving our workers an clever companion they will belief.” – Sujith Joseph, Principal Engineer, Cisco
Driving better effectivity throughout our workforce
Since its launch, Cisco’s inner AI assistant has dealt with greater than 21 million interactions, serving 100,000+ customers throughout our world workforce.
Cisco’s inner AI assistant is greater than only a chatbot. It has shortly change into essentially the most broadly used AI software at Cisco, facilitating a mean of 156,000 day by day interactions and driving better effectivity as 73% of customers reported elevated productiveness and a mean time saved of 5 hours per week.
That is made attainable by options and developments at the moment accessible within the software, together with:
- Entry to the newest AI fashions
- AI brokers and LLM orchestration
- Information and picture evaluation
- PowerPoint technology
- Private RAG (RAG on person’s private knowledge in OneDrive, and so forth.)
- Limitless Deep Analysis (Analysis reviews utilizing Cisco inner knowledge and net knowledge)
- Information evaluation AI agent
- Enterprise AI Agent and Connector Registry (Integration of distant AI brokers and MCP servers)
Classes realized alongside the best way
AI instruments are solely ever as dependable as the info they’re skilled on. One problem we confronted early on was guaranteeing that we have been solely ingesting clear, high quality, and structured knowledge into the software. Something much less may actually lower the standard of the responses and the usefulness of the answer. The Dev Crew performed continuous and rigorous testing to assist make sure that the assistant doesn’t hallucinate and constantly gives updated and correct responses.
Moreover, driving adoption throughout our world workforce offered challenges, particularly amongst AI-cautious or non-technical workers. Regardless of the answer’s approval for extremely confidential Cisco knowledge, there was a degree of apprehension surrounding its use and potential misuse. This spurred an effort to upskill our workers by creating efficient demos, enablement assets, and growing common AI consciousness.
Our user-driven, design-led strategy was essential for navigating these challenges and allowed us to construct a software that caters to the wants of our numerous workforce. We proceed to finish generative analysis to know how our workers use the AI assistant and the way it will resonate with them of their day-to-day work.
From product to platform
AI is remodeling industries at an unprecedented charge. Whereas most organizations acknowledge the pressing must undertake AI applied sciences and instrumentsmany should not totally ready to successfully leverage AI. At Cisco, we all know that AI is not a futuristic idea. We’re repeatedly innovating internally — growing AI-powered instruments, securing them, and in the end empowering our workers to do their greatest work day-after-day.
Constructing on its sturdy basis, Cisco is concentrated on evolving the AI assistant from a product right into a dynamic platform, empowering workers to have a hand in shaping their AI expertise. The Agent Registry and upcoming Agent Builder options will allow customers to tailor the software to greatest match their wants at work. Not solely will this enhance the general usefulness and worth of the AI assistant, however it’s going to additionally assist upskill our workforce, constructing a extra technically proficient and AI-fluent worker inhabitants.
As a dedication to Cisco’s funding in AI, the Cisco Automation and AI Middle was not too long ago created to give attention to increasing the adoption of AI. Trying forward, the imaginative and prescient for the inner AI assistant is to change into a dependable, always-on companion that may seamlessly combine into each workflow, anticipate wants, and allow groups to give attention to what issues most.
The interior AI assistant isn’t simply altering how we work at Cisco; it’s a cornerstone of constructing a future-proofed office that’s safe, adaptable, and prepared for what’s subsequent.
Further assets:
Report: 77% of Staff Share Firm Secrets and techniques on ChatGPT Compromising Enterprise Insurance policies
Cisco on Cisco Case Research
