There’s a second each December when the world feels prefer it’s working on pure magic. Networks hit peak demand. Gross sales groups dash to shut the quarter. Customer support groups clear up pressing requests. Packages seem on doorsteps.
Each office—from retail to healthcare to manufacturing to places of work—turns into a high-performance workshop. Not the storybook workshop we grew up imagining. An actual one. Quick. Versatile. Distributed. At all times on.
If Santa needed to run it, even he’d commerce the legacy sleigh for one thing smarter and extra highly effective. As a result of to future-proof workplaces within the fashionable enterprise, magic doesn’t scale, however AI does.
As I look throughout the Cisco portfolio, I’m struck by one easy reality: The largest items a office can obtain aren’t devices, they’re applied sciences that take away friction, unlock productiveness, and assist individuals do their finest work.
AI isn’t a present underneath a tree ready to be unwrapped. It’s already right here—not as hype or vacation sparkle, however as actual operational horsepower. It’s the engine quietly powering the world’s most essential workshops at this time—those you lead.
This season, I need to share some AI improvements which might be already remodeling how groups collaborate, join, construct, and keep mission-critical environments that maintain the world transferring. Consider these human + AI groups not as legendary helpers, however as sensible intelligence constructed to ship reliability on a worldwide scale. With a nod to “The 12 Days of Christmas,” listed below are 12 items of AI in your workshop—despatched with real love from Cisco.
Let’s begin with presents for the bottom flooring of operations: the guts of your community.
Intelligence for NetOps
Present #1: AI-assisted troubleshooting
Each vacation workshop runs on one treasured useful resource: understanding what’s taking place proper now. Cisco AI Assistant places that visibility at your fingertips, providing you with a stay conversational window into your whole community—with out searching via dashboards or digging via menus.
Ask a easy query, like “How’s my group doing?” “Any anomalies at this time?” or “Who’re my prime purchasers?” and Cisco AI Assistant assembles a full-picture response in seconds. Within the Meraki dashboardit brings collectively well being summaries, shopper insights, coverage adjustments, and efficiency tendencies in clear, human language and generates complementary knowledge visualizations. It additionally provides deep, internet-aware intelligence to ThousandEyes Views Explanationsdistilling advanced synthetics knowledge into plainspoken and reliable explanations that inform you immediately what’s taking place and why.
Whether or not you’re opening the day’s operations, getting ready for peak visitors, or retaining tabs on dozens of websites, Cisco AI Assistant turns complexity into readability.
Present #2: Automated, scalable operations
The vacation season brings a surge of adjustments: pop-up areas, seasonal workers, expanded hours, fluctuating hundreds. When your crew is stretched skinny, each configuration change turns into an opportunity for error. Cisco Workflows automates and executes multi-step duties and enforces finest practices with repeatable, scalable, AI-operated IT workflows. When a transportation hub must validate tons of of entry factors earlier than the morning traveler surge, Workflows with the Cisco AI Assistant mechanically exams system well being, verifies compliance, applies updates, and alerts the crew—all whereas the espresso remains to be brewing.
Present #3: Visible community planning
Each vacation workshop wants a single place the place groups can minimize via the chaos, see the complete image, and transfer with the form of crisp readability solely AI-powered reasoning can ship. Cisco AI Canvas does precisely that, pulling stay telemetry from Meraki, ThousandEyes, Splunk, and past into one generative person interface (UI) workspace the place everybody sees the identical reality—on the similar time.
When the season hits full tilt and also you expertise sluggish Wi-Fi, lagging checkouts, or a coverage misfire, merely ask Cisco AI Canvas to research a difficulty or ticket. It connects the dots in seconds, pinpoints the true root trigger, and drafts agentic decision processes to validate and apply focused fixes with full visibility and human oversight. With one click on, you’ll be able to herald NetOps, SecOps, or anybody else wanted, remodeling your ticket into a quick, targeted, shared decision that retains the workshop buzzing.
Present #4: Adaptive, self-optimizing connectivity
The wi-fi community is your workshop’s heartbeat. Nothing strains it like dense crowds. With Cisco AI-Enhanced Radio Useful resource Administration (RRM)you’ll be able to repeatedly optimize wi-fi efficiency with AI-driven channel planning and frequency changes. For example, throughout a large on-campus occasion, as college students transfer between auditoriums in waves, AI RRM detects the surge, adjusts energy ranges, reassigns channels, and balances purchasers mechanically to attenuate interference and keep the smoothest expertise attainable.
Present #5: Accelerated analysis with AI packet seize
Troubleshooting packet points shouldn’t really feel like digging via mountains of wrapping paper to seek out one lacking label. AI packet seize allows you to seize, filter, and diagnose packet-level issues sooner with AI-assisted evaluation. At a healthcare clinic, for instance, the place Prolonged Upkeep Launch (EMR) visitors begins timing out throughout check-ins, packet seize highlights the problematic flows and suggests probably causes—saving each time and affected person frustration.
Present #6: Smarter, safer areas
Trendy workshops depend upon bodily areas as a lot as on digital infrastructure. Meraki good cameras carry built-in digital camera intelligence: detecting individuals and automobiles, monitoring occupancy, analyzing movement patterns, and producing insights proper on the edge, with out further servers. And with Meraki MV Sensegroups can prolong that intelligence with customized computer-vision fashions tailor-made to their surroundings. In a busy success heart, for instance, MV Sense can flag uncommon motion round high-value stock throughout the night time shift and alert safety immediately, turning what may have been a significant incident right into a non-event.
AI-driven collaboration: boosting crew efficiency
As we transfer upstairs from the bottom flooring, our gift-giving shifts to a different important operational issue: how individuals work collectively. No workshop—legendary or in any other case—runs properly with no crew that may see and listen to one another and keep aligned. Listed below are a number of AI improvements that improve collaboration:
Present #7: Individuals-focused video experiences
Vacation operations stretch groups throughout rooms, websites, and continents, difficult collaboration. With Frames mode on Cisco units, AI and good digital camera methods dynamically crop video feeds and maximize display utilization to offer everybody a greater view throughout conferences. For example, in a hybrid design evaluation the place half the crew clusters round a single desk, Frames makes every contributor equally seen regardless of the place they sit.
Present #8: Environmental consciousness
Workshops are dynamic environments the place circumstances like noise, occupancy, airflow, temperature, and utilization all fluctuate. Workspace insights (from Cisco Gadgets and Cisco Areas) mechanically screens and optimizes these components. For instance, when a convention room will get too heat throughout a planning dash, workspace insights alert services to regulate circumstances and enhance consolation with out interrupting the assembly.
Present #9: Distraction-free calls
When the workshop hits peak quantity, communication turns into a lifeline. Noise is greater than a nuisance—it derails productiveness. With Webex noise removingdistracting sounds are eradicated so groups can focus. For example, throughout a help name subsequent to a busy warehouse, Webex noise removing wipes out forklift noise, chatter, and vacation chaos—leaving solely the speaker’s voice.
Present #10: Easy assembly recall
Quick-moving seasons make monitoring choices tough. AI-generated assembly notes (Webex Suite) mechanically seize key factors, assignments, and subsequent steps from conferences. This ensures that as attendees go away a cross-functional name, they don’t seem to be scrambling to recollect particulars; as an alternative, they’re aligned.
Elevating the frontline: AI for buyer expertise
Lastly, there’s the frontline expertise, the a part of the workshop the place clients depend on you most.
Present #11: Responsive, conversational help
Prospects count on quick, intuitive assist—much more so throughout the holidays. Webex AI Agent for the contact heart delivers personalised, conversational experiences throughout channels, resolving inquiries and fulfilling intents effectively. As a substitute of ready on maintain or shouting “buyer consultant” at an interactive voice response (IVR) bot, clients get fast, pure solutions that resonate with vacation spirit in each interplay.
Present #12: Seamless handoffs
When name quantity surges, Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Heart turns into your workshop’s most dependable helper. It offers correct, automated summaries from AI brokers and IVR transfers so clients don’t should repeat themselves. Even throughout the busiest season, this ensures a easy, frustration-free buyer expertise.
AI—the engine behind each workshop
When an enterprise turns into a busy workshop, the road between chaos and calm comes from the intelligence behind your operations. Intentional AI that hyperlinks each layer and area of your enterprise permits data, context, and actions to all transfer as one.
Throughout networking, collaboration, safety, operations, and buyer expertise, Cisco AI is already delivering that intelligence at this time:
- Proactively optimizing efficiency and providing the most effective view
- Simplifying advanced operations
- Answering inquiries and fulfilling buyer intent
- Defending customers and techniques
- Empowering each crew—from NetOps to buyer help
As you propose for 2026, consider Cisco not simply as a tech accomplice however as an architect of clever workplaces—constructed for agility, resilience, and regardless of the future delivers. As a result of the true magic of the season isn’t the present itself—it’s the system that makes supply attainable.
Let’s construct that future collectively.
