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Cisco Live San Diego 2025 — notes from the edge of the possible

Home » Blog » Cisco Live San Diego 2025 — notes from the edge of the possible
Vlado Č. Stajić
19 June 2025

This year’s conference carried an unmistakable message: AI is the future, and the future is here. We’re no longer speculating about how AI might shape our world. It’s actively transforming our tools, workflows, and expectations.

A major thread was the rise of Agentic AI — systems that act, adapt, and make decisions. Customers know they must embrace AI or risk falling behind. But adoption comes with concerns: security, reliability, and data confidentiality remain top of mind.

Cisco’s security and AI focus strongly aligns with our own company strategy. It echoes what we’ve committed to in our mission: ensuring that new technologies, including AI, are integrated securely and purposefully. This is the reason why we are building our own internal AI infrastructure to explore relevant, controlled use cases. Alongside AI, the cloud conversation has matured. Companies are no longer all-in. They’re pursuing hybrid strategies, valuing on-prem for control and cloud for flexibility. AI is following this model too, with edge deployments growing — especially for scenarios like computer vision in branch offices.

Portrait of Elizabeth Dafne Di Rocco.
Portrait of Elizabeth Dafne Di Rocco.
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Most products are now AI-enabled by design. Some offer conversational interfaces; others embed intelligence into core functions. One demo presented during Cisco Live’s keynote showed a network tool dynamically building UIs, proposing fixes, and offering auto-apply options — always with a possibility for a human override.

Security solutions like hybrid mesh firewalls, observability platforms like Splunk, and the continued importance of service providers all point to one thing: the AI revolution is built on the backbone of dependable infrastructure.

Though not formally addressed, a sense of global uncertainty loomed in the background — geopolitical tensions and domestic unease. It gave the event’s technological optimism a sense of urgency.

One special treat on the exhibition floor was the Cisco Crisis Response team showcasing one of its impressive emergency vehicles. These vehicles are deployed in time of natural disasters or other emergencies to help first responders reestablish communications quickly and effectively. One interesting recent deployment was during a malware attack in a local school where Cisco provided the connectivity for students to take their SATs despite the outage.

Emergency response vehicle

The change of venue to San Diego was widely appreciated. It brought a calmer, more open energy than Las Vegas. Personally, visiting the USS Midway Museum nearby added a grounding perspective. A naval engineering marvel from another time, it was a quiet reminder that our drive to innovate has deep roots.

USS Midway Museum

Together with my team, we also had productive meetings with counterparts from different teams inside Cisco’s impressive organization — constructive talks about the future and appreciation of our current work. These relationships are just as vital as the technologies we build.

In short, this year’s event wasn’t just about unveiling tools. It was about direction. AI is no longer emerging. It’s here. And it’s not replacing us — it’s evolving with us.