Connected intelligence: Cisco signals a new era for AI collaboration

Each year, WebexOne offers a window into where the collaboration landscape is heading next. Cisco’s flagship conference gathers AV innovators, IT leaders, customers and tech specialists for four days of ideas, innovation and future-focused thinking. This year, AV experts ET Group were on the ground, exploring the breakthroughs set to redefine how we connect, communicate and collaborate at work.

This year’s event took place in San Diego, California at the Marriott Marquis. The theme for WebexOne 2025 was ‘Connected Intelligence’, with a large focus on changing the ways we connect and collaborate, and how Cisco is leveraging new technologies to expand their devices, platforms and user experience.

Unsurprisingly, the trends discussed at were heavily centred around AI, customer experience and optimisation of collaboration spaces and tools. From new Webex AI agents, to next-gen plug-and-play room systems and devices enabled by NVIDIA, Cisco is making workspaces more intelligent:

AI to AI (or Agent to Agent)

Human to AI and AI to Human are the two typical models of communication between people and agents that we are used to today. You enter a query or request into an AI tool such as ChatGPT or an image generation software (Human to AI) and the tool responds back with the desired content or information.

Or, you’re writing an email or document, or perhaps are running a note taking app in the background of your meeting, and the built-in AI bot begins sharing prompts to speed up productivity or auto generates meeting summaries for you to review (AI to Human). These have now become typical workflows that are part of our day to day work.

But now, innovators like Cisco are enabling communication between different AI tools (AI to AI) that are not only able to automate and complete tasks without needing prompting or human intervention, but are also outputting content and information at a rate that is almost immeasurable.

To put it into perspective, even though today there are approximately eight billion people on Earth, which is already an astronomical number, it is predicted that in the next 10 years, AI to AI will be delivering a combined output that is equivalent to 80 billion people, and in significantly less time.

Agentic AI

Following in line with the next phase of AI to AI innovation, it was announced during this year’s show that Cisco will be releasing five new AI agents within the Webex platform that will have a major impact on the ways we experience collaboration:

• Notetaker Agent: The Notetaker Agent captures the important details for you, contextualising and sharing them with relevant attendees, allowing users to remain part of the conversation and truly connect with other participants.
• Polling Agent: The Polling Agent allows meeting hosts to gather user feedback and opinions in real-time, launching live, contextualised polls throughout the conversation that prompts participants to share their thoughts without interrupting speakers or derailing agendas.
• Task Agent: The Task Agent auto-generates and assigns actions items based on meeting summaries and shares them with the right participants, eliminating duplication of work, confusion and the unnecessary ‘follow-up’ meetings that lead to meeting fatigue.
• Meeting Scheduler: The Scheduling Agent automates the process of reviewing attendee calendars to find the best time to book meetings or schedule tasks, saving upwards of 100 hours per year for your organisation in lost productivity.
• AI Receptionist: The AI Receptionist will be able to provide contextualised answers to customer queries and automate basic tasks like transferring calls to relevant teams and scheduling meetings or appointments for businesses with contact centres or customer support lines.

Contact Centre and Customer Experience

One of the key areas where AI capabilities will come into play is Contact Centres and similar touchpoints that can make or break the customer experience.

The AI Receptionist will help to streamline calls, with prompts and questions that you can personalise to ensure customers are directed to the right resources, and your team can enter the conversation with the right context and information available. All without that frustrating experience of feeling like you’re just talking to ‘robots’, as the AI Receptionist is designed to deliver a person-to-person like conversation.

Within the Contact Centre platform, users can also view real-time information such as the sentiment of the conversation, as well as receive prompts with suggested next steps or relevant information based on what the call is about and who is on the line.

Conversation data will be safely stored in the Webex platform and viewable from within the call, so anyone on your team can reference important information such as troubleshooting data at any time. If they call again, the next person to chat with the customer will be able to jump straight in without forcing them to repeat information.

It is predicted that Cisco Contact Centre will save an average of 3-4 minutes per call, and this will only increase as they continue to expand and enhance the platform and AI capabilities.

RoomOS 26

During the show, Cisco announced that RoomOS 26 is coming. The latest OS is focused on delivering Cinematic Meetings through next-gen devices powered by NVIDIA, that leverage AI to optimise camera angles, display real estate and sound during your meetings.

This is where we will see the AI Director Agent come into play, a new capability that can ‘anticipate and adapt to meeting flows, autonomously delivering engaging, cinematic views.’ Cisco devices will be able to track speakers and transition display focus more smoothly and organically, block distraction zones caused by common triggers like reflections in glass, and isolate and suppress background noise.

We can also expect updates coming to Control Hub, where users can manage these device capabilities, access enhanced meeting analytics, data and troubleshooting via Canvas AI for better IT management, and now take advantage of Cisco’s new digital twinning feature.

Digital twinning, powered by NVIDIA, utilises information captured by the room’s AI cameras, microphones and other devices to create a virtual ‘mirror’ of the space. Camera angles, audio zones and acoustic quality can then be visualised and tested to determine whether the meeting setup offers an optimal experience.

And to make the Cisco experience even more seamless, plug-and-play deployment is a key feature of their devices. All you need to do is plug in the device and enter the Media Access Control (MAC) address in Control Hub. From there, the device will automatically register via internet connection.

Open-platform collaboration

Cisco utilises an open-platform model so that customers who use other collaboration systems such as Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) or Zoom can still leverage the benefits of Cisco technology, prioritising interoperability for a better user experience.

In fact, it was stated during the show that more than 3,500 organisations have designed their MTRs using Cisco devices due to their reliability, innovation and flexibility, prompting an official partnership between Cisco, Microsoft and NVIDIA that enables Cisco’s unique AI features to be accessible across platforms.

Cisco for Government

One key focus vertical that stood out to us at this year’s WebexOne was Cisco’s solutions for government clients. The goal is to future-proof workplaces for government agencies ‘with a fully stacked end-to-end collaboration offering’ that prioritises security and compliance.

This offering includes accessibility across devices, meeting rooms and office buildings, with a variety of deployment methods such as FedRAMP Cloud, on-prem, cloud or hybrid-based. A key part of ensuring security and privacy is the Webex Compliance Hub, developed in collaboration with Theta Lake. Compliance Hub aims to centralise compliance across voice, video, SMS, AI assistants, and beyond, ensuring that interaction with or between AI tools does not pose any risks regarding exposure or theft of data.

The future of connected intelligence

WebexOne 2025 made it clear that the future of collaboration is not only intelligent, but deeply connected. From AI-to-AI communication and cinematic meeting experiences to digital twins and open-platform design, Cisco is reimagining how people and technology work together.

At ET Group, we’re inspired by the possibilities these advancements unlock – helping teams stay connected, empowered, and adaptable no matter where they work. The insights and connections gained at WebexOne are already shaping how we think about the next generation of workplace collaboration, and how we can bring even more intelligent, human-centered solutions to our clients.