As AI reshapes job roles and automation redefines workflows, organizations are beneath stress to repeatedly construct, validate, and apply new expertise at scale. Most expertise pipelines merely can’t sustain: almost half of IT leaders already report {that a} lack of AI expertise is slowing progress.
At Be taught with Cisco, it’s our purpose to make IT expertise accessible to everybody: from college students and entry-level professionals to consultants with years of expertise. So it’s extraordinarily gratifying to see that IDC MarketScape has positioned Cisco as a Chief within the 2025–2026 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers in North America and a Chief within the 2025 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers in Europe.
Thanks to everybody at Cisco and at our companions for making this recognition attainable. As AI adjustments the best way we work, we’re extra dedicated than ever to offering entry to in-demand expertise to learners throughout the globe.
Studying as mission-critical infrastructure
“The arrival of AI and different rising applied sciences provides a brand new dimension of complexity to an ecosystem already burdened by widening IT expertise shortages,” in line with IDC MarketScape for North America IT Coaching Providers. The report continues: “IDC tasks that by the tip of subsequent yr, expertise shortages might value the worldwide financial system as much as US$5.5 trillion in misplaced income, product delays, high quality points, and impaired competitiveness.” Workforce growth is now not a nice-to-have. It’s foundational infrastructure for competitiveness in an AI-driven financial system.
At Cisco, we’ve all the time believed that expertise alone doesn’t drive transformation—folks do. That perception is mirrored in our end-to-end studying ecosystem, designed to assist people, groups, and enterprises construct expertise that matter at the moment whereas making ready for what’s subsequent.
Proper now, which means making ready groups to work with AI. The World Financial Discussion board predicts that by 2030, 39 p.c of staff’ core expertise will change. That applies to everybody, not simply folks in ICT and even ICT-adjacent roles. And naturally, the dominant driver of that shift in expertise is AI and technological change.
A generational problem
Our means to satisfy this want for reskilling—each for people and for enterprises—may have implications for generations. At Be taught with Cisco, we’re addressing the problem head-on.
Cisco Networking Academy’s Introduction to Fashionable AInow accessible in 12 languages, is already one in all our hottest programs. The NetAcad workforce can also be releasing a whole suite of studying referred to as “Apply AI.” The primary module reveals how you can use AI-driven thematic evaluation to higher perceive buyer suggestions. The following module clearly teaches anybody to make use of AI to put in writing and replace a resume. Additional programs and the whole Apply AI curriculum might be introduced at Cisco Stay Amsterdam.
We’re additionally seeing thrilling traction with our AI Enterprise Practitioner Studying Pathaccessible on Cisco U. This Studying Path helps professionals in any respect ranges, in all industries, construct foundational AI expertise and lead accountable adoption of AI by way of strategic use and a spread of enterprise functions.
ICT staff can count on even better adjustments. In 2024, the primary report from the AI-Enabled Workforce Consortium discovered that 90 p.c of ICT-related roles will expertise excessive or average ranges of transformation from AI. The second report, issued only a yr later, discovered that 78 p.c of ICT-related job roles have been already being remodeled.
We’re remodeling our certifications portfolio simply as shortly. We’re updating current coursework and certifications to include new, in-demand expertise, and we’re including new studying and certifications to show and validate AI-specific expertise. These embody:
- The Cisco AI Infrastructure Specialistwhich lies throughout the CCNP Information Heart certification monitor. It permits learners to construct and validate expertise in deploying, migrating, and working AI options on Cisco information middle infrastructure, in addition to in monitoring and troubleshooting.
- The AI Technical Practitioner certification focuses on synthetic intelligence and machine studying workloads, serving to technical professionals change into AI-ready and efficiently embed AI into their workflows.
- The CCDE-AI Infrastructure specialization permits professional networking professionals to validate their means to design, provision, and optimize networks and compute energy for at the moment’s AI workloads. It encompasses information of AI and machine studying, in addition to concerns referring to networks, safety, {hardware}, and the surroundings.
We’ll proceed to make these expertise accessible by way of our related, multiplatform ecosystem:
- Cisco Networking Academy
- Cisco U.
- Cisco Studying Community
- A globally acknowledged certification program
Collectively, these platforms help roughly 7 million learners annually and greater than 28 million learners worldwide since inception, spanning foundational digital literacy by way of expert-level mastery.
Personalised, AI-driven studying at world scale
As AI transforms how work will get completed, it’s additionally redefining how folks be taught.
By Cisco U., learners can determine ability gaps, obtain tailor-made content material, and monitor progress over time—shifting studying from reactive coaching to proactive expertise growth.
From GenAI-powered assessments and adaptive apply exams to dynamic content material updates, Cisco is embedding intelligence straight into the training expertise—whereas persevering with to pair expertise with professional instruction, mentorship, and neighborhood help.
Studying by doing: Fingers-on expertise that mirrors actuality
Cisco’s ecosystem is constructed round real-world functions, making ready learners with job-ready expertise. We’re emphasizing project-based studying—equivalent to that present in our Information Science Necessities with Python course, which was just lately highlighted in a white paper launched on the World Financial Discussion board.
Throughout our portfolio, learners interact with digital labs, hardware-based distant labs, practical simulations, Seize the Flag challenges, and project-based experiences that mirror enterprise environments. They will construct, safe, automate, and troubleshoot networks utilizing the identical instruments and eventualities they’ll encounter on the job.
This experiential method extends to world and regional occasions equivalent to Cisco Stay, hackathons, and expert-moderated research teams — serving to learners construct not simply expertise, however confidence, credibility, and neighborhood.
Main the way forward for IT studying
In an period the place the flexibility to repeatedly be taught is the last word aggressive benefit, we imagine IDC MarketScape’s recognition reinforces what we see every single day: expertise are the muse of innovation, resilience, and financial development.
At Cisco, we stay dedicated to empowering learners, companions, and clients throughout North America, Europe, and past with the information and hands-on expertise they should lead in an AI-powered world—at the moment and into the long run.
As a result of when folks thrive, expertise transforms.
The IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers analyzes IT coaching companies with portfolios which might be applicable to organizations contemplating vital digital and AI transformation initiatives.
The inclusion standards embody:
- A breadth of choices
- Dimension and breadth of choices that may considerably contribute to transformation
- initiatives
- Vital expertise experience that’s vital to transformation initiatives
IDC MarketScape: European IT Coaching Providers 2025 Vendor Evaluation, #EUR153005625, December 2025
IDC MarketScape: North America IT Coaching Providers 2025-2026 Vendor Evaluation, #US52991625, December 2025
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