Speaking to UC Today, Amit Barave, VP and GM of the Webex Suite and AI at Cisco said the debate around whether to adopt AI is over. “The conversation has already moved from are we going to benefit from AI to how do we do it,” he said.
That shift is driving a structural change in how IT teams operate. Barave pointed to Cisco’s full-stack position across networking, security, and collaboration as a key advantage. Before AI, large enterprises managed each layer in isolation. Now, he said, stitching data and signals across those layers makes full-stack agentic operations management possible.
“What used to be weeks-long operational troubleshooting and debugging tasks across multiple teams — we’re showing the promise of reducing that down to hours,” Barave said.
Rethinking the Human vs. AI Debate
On customer-facing roles, Barave pushed back on the “human versus AI” framing. He argued that AI will raise the quality of customer experience, not replace the people delivering it.
“I wonder if anyone today is truly delighted with the experience they get calling any contact centre phone number in the world,” he said. The goal, he added, is to let AI handle routine queries so human agents can focus on complex, high-value interactions. Gartner forecasts that conversational AI will reduce global contact centre agent labour costs by $80 billion by 2026.
How to Modernise Without Breaking What Works
Barave recommended a sandbox-first approach: identify a limited set of use cases, prove value, then expand. Privacy, security, and compliance must run alongside that from day one — not bolt on later.
He compared the current AI moment to the arrival of iPhones and cloud computing in the enterprise. “The inherent value of those technologies was such that we just found a way to address the security concerns,” he said.
