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 resolve pressing requests. Packages seem on doorsteps.
Each office—from retail to healthcare to manufacturing to workplaces—turns into a high-performance workshop. Not the storybook workshop we grew up imagining. An actual one. Quick. Versatile. Distributed. All the time 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 fact: The most important presents 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 below 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 necessary workshops in the present day—those you lead.
This season, I need to share some AI improvements which are already reworking how groups collaborate, join, construct, and preserve mission-critical environments that maintain the world shifting. 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 presents of AI on your workshop—despatched with real love from Cisco.
Let’s begin with presents for the bottom ground of operations: the guts of your community.
Intelligence for NetOps
Reward #1: AI-assisted troubleshooting
Each vacation workshop runs on one valuable useful resource: realizing what’s occurring proper now. Cisco AI Assistant places that visibility at your fingertips, providing you with a dwell conversational window into your complete community—with out searching by means of dashboards or digging by means of menus.
Ask a easy query, like “How’s my group doing?” “Any anomalies in the present day?” or “Who’re my high shoppers?” and Cisco AI Assistant assembles a full-picture response in seconds. Within the Meraki dashboard, it brings collectively well being summaries, shopper insights, coverage modifications, and efficiency traits in clear, human language and generates complementary information visualizations. It additionally provides deep, internet-aware intelligence to ThousandEyes Views Explanations, distilling complicated synthetics information into plainspoken and reliable explanations that let you know immediately what’s occurring and why.
Whether or not you’re opening the day’s operations, making ready for peak visitors, or preserving tabs on dozens of web sites, Cisco AI Assistant turns complexity into readability.
Reward #2: Automated, scalable operations
The vacation season brings a surge of modifications: pop-up areas, seasonal employees, expanded hours, fluctuating masses. When your staff 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 robotically assessments system well being, verifies compliance, applies updates, and alerts the staff—all whereas the espresso continues to be brewing.
Reward #3: Visible community planning
Each vacation workshop wants a single place the place groups can reduce by means of the chaos, see the total image, and transfer with the type of crisp readability solely AI-powered reasoning can ship. Cisco AI Canvas does precisely that, pulling dwell telemetry from Meraki, ThousandEyes, Splunk, and past into one generative person interface (UI) workspace the place everybody sees the identical fact—on the identical time.
When the season hits full tilt and also you expertise gradual Wi-Fi, lagging checkouts, or a coverage misfire, merely ask Cisco AI Canvas to analyze a problem or ticket. It connects the dots in seconds, pinpoints the actual root trigger, and drafts agentic decision processes to validate and apply focused fixes with full visibility and human oversight. With one click on, you possibly can usher in NetOps, SecOps, or anybody else wanted, reworking your ticket into a quick, targeted, shared decision that retains the workshop buzzing.
Reward #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 possibly can repeatedly optimize wi-fi efficiency with AI-driven channel planning and frequency changes. As an 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 shoppers robotically to reduce interference and preserve the smoothest expertise potential.
Reward #5: Accelerated prognosis with AI packet seize
Troubleshooting packet points shouldn’t really feel like digging by means of mountains of wrapping paper to seek out one lacking label. AI packet seize allows you to seize, filter, and diagnose packet-level issues quicker 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 doubtless causes—saving each time and affected person frustration.
Reward #6: Smarter, safer areas
Trendy workshops rely upon bodily areas as a lot as on digital infrastructure. Meraki sensible cameras deliver built-in digicam intelligence: detecting individuals and autos, monitoring occupancy, analyzing movement patterns, and producing insights proper on the edge, with out further servers. And with Meraki MV Sense, groups can prolong that intelligence with customized computer-vision fashions tailor-made to their surroundings. In a busy achievement heart, for instance, MV Sense can flag uncommon motion round high-value stock through 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 staff efficiency
As we transfer upstairs from the bottom ground, our gift-giving shifts to a different crucial operational issue: how individuals work collectively. No workshop—legendary or in any other case—runs nicely and not using a staff that may see and listen to one another and keep aligned. Listed below are a couple of AI improvements that improve collaboration:
Reward #7: Individuals-focused video experiences
Vacation operations stretch groups throughout rooms, websites, and continents, difficult collaboration. With Frames mode on Cisco units, AI and sensible digicam methods dynamically crop video feeds and maximize display screen utilization to present everybody a greater view throughout conferences. As an example, in a hybrid design assessment the place half the staff clusters round a single desk, Frames makes every contributor equally seen regardless of the place they sit.
Reward #8: Environmental consciousness
Workshops are dynamic environments the place situations like noise, occupancy, airflow, temperature, and utilization all fluctuate. Workspace insights (from Cisco Units and Cisco Areas) robotically screens and optimizes these elements. For instance, when a convention room will get too heat throughout a planning dash, workspace insights alert amenities to regulate situations and enhance consolation with out interrupting the assembly.
Reward #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 elimination, distracting sounds are eradicated so groups can focus. As an example, throughout a assist name subsequent to a busy warehouse, Webex noise elimination wipes out forklift noise, chatter, and vacation chaos—leaving solely the speaker’s voice.
Reward #10: Easy assembly recall
Quick-moving seasons make monitoring selections tough. AI-generated assembly notes (Webex Suite) robotically 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.
Reward #11: Responsive, conversational assist
Clients anticipate quick, intuitive assist—much more so through the holidays. Webex AI Agent for the contact heart delivers customized, conversational experiences throughout channels, resolving inquiries and fulfilling intents effectively. As an alternative 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.
Reward #12: Seamless handoffs
When name quantity surges, Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Middle turns into your workshop’s most dependable helper. It supplies correct, automated summaries from AI brokers and IVR transfers so clients don’t must repeat themselves. Even through 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 house of your online business allows data, context, and actions to all transfer as one.
Throughout networking, collaboration, safety, operations, and buyer expertise, Cisco AI is already delivering that intelligence in the present day:
- Proactively optimizing efficiency and providing the most effective view
- Simplifying complicated operations
- Answering inquiries and fulfilling buyer intent
- Defending customers and methods
- Empowering each staff—from NetOps to buyer assist
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 actual magic of the season isn’t the present itself—it’s the system that makes supply potential.
Let’s construct that future collectively.
