Enrico Mercadante, VP, EMEA Networking, Cisco, addresses the ways in which business infrastructure needs to keep up with the rapid advancement and complexity of the AI Age.
As businesses adopt AI to transform operations and introduce new workflows, networks face unprecedented demands. Meanwhile, the growing scale and complexity of cyberattacks make network resilience more vital than ever. Secure, resilient networks are shaping the future.
But here’s how organisations can keep pace.
Infrastructure Needs to Catch Up
Global networks have been under siege for years, but recent attacks are more sophisticated and move at unprecedented speed. Many organisations are still relying on outdated infrastructure, with Cisco research revealing that 48% of network assets worldwide are aging or obsolete. This creates vulnerabilities that attackers eagerly exploit. It’s no longer enough to patch and maintain; a fundamental shift in strategy is required.
According to our research, just one severe network outage per business per year results in an aggregated $160 billion in losses globally driven by congestion, cyberattacks, and software misconfigurations.
This mounting risk is prompting organisations to rethink and evolve their network architectures for greater resilience. And Cisco is accelerating efforts to refresh outdated customer infrastructure and share best practices for securing existing environments through the Resilient Infrastructure initiative. This initiative aims to shrink the attack surface, strengthen default protections, eliminate outdated features, and deliver advanced security tools that help protect data and enable faster threat detection.
Less is More
Modern networks typically span solutions and services from a range of different vendors, creating layers of complexity that can quickly overwhelm even experienced IT teams. This complexity often translates into vulnerability, especially when secure configurations aren’t consistently implemented or maintained. For many, simplicity and automation are now mission critical.
Businesses increasingly need networks where secure configurations, protocols, and features are enabled by default and adapt automatically. There is also a growing demand for AI-assisted systems that support troubleshooting and proactively alert administrators to insecure practices, helping to phase out legacy methods that no longer meet today’s security standards. Cisco’s focus on agent-based AI operations for networks builds on established network automation practices, supporting companies as they evolve their network management and integrate with continuous development workflows.
Security is the Foundation
Security for network devices should never be an afterthought. Historically, network infrastructure hasn’t been monitored as closely as other areas of IT, but today it serves as a critical control point for managing risk. Organisations now face the challenge of not only detecting threats quickly, but also responding before vulnerabilities can be exploited. There is an urgent need to reduce the attack surface, remove legacy insecure features, and introduce advanced capabilities for detection and response.
That’s why Cisco is doubling down on building security into the foundation of the networking portfolio. Recent enhancements enable teams to respond to threats in real time, often before a patch is available resulting in less downtime, greater resilience, and increased peace of mind.
A Requirement for the AI Era
As the digital landscape evolves, businesses need infrastructure that not only keeps pace with innovation but also establishes a secure, future-ready foundation. With AI workloads expanding rapidly and quantum computing on the horizon, many are under increasing pressure to ensure their networks can protect sensitive data against emerging threats.
The next generation of security requires networks to seamlessly provide identity management, deep visibility, integrated detection and protection, and streamlined management, while also incorporating advanced technologies like post-quantum cryptography. Secure Networking, something only Cisco can truly deliver, is the architectural foundation that makes this vision possible. By bringing networking and security together, organisations gain the deep visibility, integrated protection, and reduced complexity needed to evolve their infrastructure for the AI era.
Move Forward with Confidence
AI, automation, and emerging technologies will keep raising the stakes for digital infrastructure. Organisations that put off modernising their networks risk exposing themselves to outages, breaches, and operational disruption at a time when resilience matters more than ever. The path forward begins with assessments of existing environments, closer collaboration between security and networking teams, and a focus on reducing complexity across the network lifecycle.
Secure networking is a strategic decision that supports innovation, protects data, and builds lasting trust. Organisations that act now will be better positioned to safeguard their operations, realise the full value of AI, and stay ahead of the curve.
Image Credit: Cisco
