Cisco has launched Cisco Cloud Control, a unified platform for managing, monitoring and defending IT infrastructure. The system is designed to let human operators and AI agents work together in one environment.
The platform brings together Cisco's networking, security, compute, observability and collaboration products under a single management plane, with one login and one view. It also underpins what Cisco calls its AgenticOps model, in which AI agents take a more active role in day-to-day operations while people retain oversight.
Customers will be able to build their own applications and AI agents in natural language within the platform, Cisco said. The system also connects to third-party tools and services, including AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, PagerDuty, ServiceNow and Slack.
Cloud Control relies on a shared data layer so human teams and software agents can operate from the same context. Operators will be able to use autonomous agents to identify faults, investigate causes, apply fixes, test changes before deployment and confirm whether services have recovered, according to Cisco.
Features announced include Cisco AI Canvas, a collaborative workspace where operators and AI agents can investigate incidents together, and Cloud Control Studio, which lets customers create custom agents, apps and workflows. Those tools can connect to more than 50 third-party platforms through native connectors or the open Model Context Protocol, Cisco said.
"AI agents reason and act continuously at software speed, and that changes everything about how we scale, manage, and defend our critical infrastructure," said Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco. "Cisco Cloud Control is a command center for agentic AI: a platform where your team and your AI agents work together, in the same environment, with the same information, and with humans in control."
Security push
The launch was accompanied by a broader set of security announcements aimed at reducing the time between the discovery of a flaw and the deployment of protections. Cisco said the gap between vulnerability and exploit has narrowed sharply as attackers make wider use of AI tools.
A central part of that effort is an expanded version of Live Protect, which Cisco described as a runtime protection system for supported products. It is designed to shield systems from newly discovered vulnerabilities without requiring reboots, software upgrades or maintenance windows.
Live Protect is now available on N9000 series switches and is included with the Nexus One entitlement. Cisco plans to extend the protection to more products across its portfolio, starting with campus and branch smart switches and then secure routers.
Cisco also outlined updates to Hybrid Mesh Firewall, which is intended to extend policy enforcement across networks, applications, and both Cisco and third-party firewalls. The aim is to reduce the operational impact of security incidents.
Quantum focus
Another part of the announcement focused on post-quantum security. Cisco said organisations face growing exposure to so-called "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, in which encrypted data is collected now in the expectation that future quantum systems could break today's cryptography.
To address that risk, Cisco said new campus, branch and data centre routers, switches and firewall series will launch with quantum-safe secure boot as standard. It also plans to enable quantum-safe communications across most of its core portfolio.
Cisco introduced Quantum Ready Assessments through Cisco IQ to help customers identify which assets are most exposed to post-quantum threats and where remediation should begin. It also launched a Quantum Resilience Framework to give enterprises a structured model for adopting post-quantum cryptography across communications and products.
Services and resilience
Cisco also used the launch to expand the role of Cisco IQ, its AI-based support and professional services tool. The system is now integrated into Cloud Control and includes a Resilient Infrastructure Playbook, intended to help customers assess support exposure, security vulnerabilities and broader infrastructure risks.
Cisco IQ will support on-premises deployment options for customers with data sovereignty requirements, Cisco said. The company also introduced Peer Benchmarking, which uses anonymised data to compare organisations on factors such as Last Day of Support risk exposure and vulnerability rates against peers of similar size, sector or infrastructure profile.
Alongside that, Cisco announced Resilient Infrastructure Services, a three-step service model delivered through support and professional services teams. The approach covers exposure assessment, infrastructure modernisation and defence resiliency, with the aim of helping customers address risks linked to frontier AI models.
The Cloud Control launch reflects a wider shift among large infrastructure suppliers as they try to embed AI more deeply into operational software rather than offer it only as an assistant layer. Cisco is positioning the platform not just as a control point for its own products, but also as a place where customers can bring together external tools and govern how AI agents interact with critical systems.
Cisco Cloud Control has entered controlled availability in the United States, with wider availability to follow, the company said.