During its Partner Summit on November 4, 2025, Cisco introduced Cisco IQ, a new AI-powered digital interface that consolidates real-time insights, on-demand assessments, incident resolution, personalized learning, automation, and agents connected with professional and support services all in one place. The ambitious goal is to transform technological complexity into clear decisions and measurable actions, guiding everything from architecture planning to daily operations and continuous optimization.
The company frames this launch within a clear context for any IT department: more tools, more data, and less time. With Cisco IQ, it proposes a shift in focus — from “firefighting” to “anticipate and prevent” — supported by an agentic AI foundation designed to learn from each client’s context and adapt to their operational environment with specific recommendations and actions.
“Cisco IQ does not just react: anticipates, personalizes, and transforms how assessments, deployment, and operations are conducted,”
summarized Liz Centoni, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer at Cisco, upon presenting the platform.
What is Cisco IQ in practice
Cisco IQ is presented as a single point of interaction for IT teams, managed services, and partners. Instead of jumping between consoles and portals, users experience a unified experience that:
- Continuously evaluates infrastructure status through on-demand checks: security alerts, configurations, regulatory compliance, quantum readiness, and customized validations.
- Displays in real-time the complete inventory of assets and their lifecycle, with planning for end-of-support and tasks aligned with each milestone.
- Accelerates troubleshooting via AI-assisted diagnostics and simplified case management.
- Learns from each client’s environment to offer hyper-personalized support that evolves with operations.
- Integrates via API with existing systems and can be deployed as SaaS, tethered on-premises, or air-gapped on-premises, catering to sectors with strict sovereignty and security requirements.
More than a new “tool,” Cisco emphasizes that IQ is a layer of intelligence overlaying Cisco’s services, reducing operational friction and cognitive load on teams, freeing time for innovation and resilience initiatives.
Why now: complexity, fragmented visibility, and results pressure
In the midst of transitioning to distributed, multi-cloud architectures and continuous observability, many teams deal with isolated automation, disconnected data, and support procedures that don’t always scale with business needs. The known consequences include: costly incidents, security gaps, project delays, and most critically, loss of trust between technical teams and business units.
Cisco positions IQ as a solution to this reality. The platform combines automation, expert knowledge, and adaptive learning to detect early risk signals, suggest actions, and execute tasks securely, with humans at the center of control and monitoring. Concurrently, it provides a common language across operations, security, compliance, and executive management, through operational clarity dashboards linking technical metrics to business outcomes.
An agentic AI foundation that “trains” in the client’s context
The core of IQ is an agentic AI architecture designed to work goal-oriented and collaborate with other agents (and with people) throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. In practical terms:
- IQ agents observe the environment (telemetry, CMDB/asset management, policies), reason about risks and opportunities, and act with security and traceability.
- The platform is built as API-first and multi-user: serving internal client teams, partners, and Cisco’s own service, aiming to fit into existing workflows without forcing system replacements.
- The design emphasizes explainability and human-in-the-loop control, with a transparent AI architecture and data governance suitable for regulated environments.
This approach aligns with a broader trend: Cisco’s recent research indicates that by 2028, agentic AI could manage 68% of support and service interactions, pushing B2B providers toward proactive and predictive experiences as a market standard.
Deployment modes: SaaS, tethered on-premises, and isolated on-premises
One of the points generating the most interest among large accounts is deployment flexibility:
- SaaS for organizations prioritizing speed of adoption and minimal maintenance.
- Tethered on-prem when local processing of part of the intelligence and controlled connectivity to Cisco services are desired.
- Air-gapped on-prem for isolated environments due to mission or security needs, where the platform operates offline, common in government, defense, or critical industries.
In all scenarios, Cisco IQ integrates via API with ticketing, inventory, security, compliance systems, and network telemetry and observability from Cisco’s stack.
Use cases: from prevention to measurable value
1) Security and compliance. On-demand assessments cross security alerts with real configurations and applicable regulations, generating remediation plans and audit evidence. In data sovereignty environments, the isolated mode and API control enable principles of least privilege and selective sharing.
2) Lifecycle management. A unified inventory view shows end-of-support dates, dependencies, and associated risks, along with impact simulations and recommendations for renewal or patching based on priority.
3) Operations and troubleshooting. During incidents, IQ offers guided hypotheses and actions based on historical patterns and expert knowledge, reducing average resolution time and improving SLA.
4) Training and adoption. The personalized learning layer recommends pathways to bridge skill gaps as teams adapt to new functions, policies, or technical domains.
5) Quantum readiness. Though still emerging, “quantum readiness” checks cryptography and protocols, anticipating transition to crypto-agility.
What it offers partners
Cisco emphasizes that its partner ecosystem is “at the core” of its service and support model. IQ opens doors for integrators and MSPs to:
- Expand their offerings with proactive and predictive value.
- Industrialize practices of observability, security, and continuous optimization with agents and automation.
- Connect IQ with their own stacks via APIs to deliver more coherent customer experiences.
Zeus Kerravala, analyst at ZK Research, interprets the development as “a clear intent to lead agent-driven services”, reducing cognitive load from IT teams and bringing operations closer to business results.
Availability and schedule
Cisco expects Cisco IQ to be generally available in the second half of fiscal year 2026. Pricing and packages have not been detailed yet, but initial deployment is likely to prioritize large accounts and scenarios requiring urgent consolidation of support, services, and observability.
Unanswered questions (and what to ask)
While IQ presents a clear proposition, IT and procurement leaders should prepare a checklist for evaluation:
- Data governance and privacy. What information leaves the environment? How is it anonymized? Which logs and agent decisions are recorded and audited?
- Compatibility with existing stack. Are there official connectors or SDKs for current systems (ITSM, SIEM, CMDB, observability) and non-Cisco sources?
- Deployment modes. What are the functional differences between SaaS, tethered on-prem, and air-gapped? What hardware and network requirements does each impose?
- Performance and explainability. How are agent recommendations explained? What limits and thresholds can policies adjust?
- S support model and licensing. How is IQ packaged (per user, per device, per domain)? What is included in services, and what is add-on?
- KPI and ROI. What metrics does IQ provide to measure reductions in MTTR, security posture improvements, compliance, and total cost?
Answering these questions, along with a controlled proof of value (pilot with clear objectives and baseline), will help distinguish between promises and real effectiveness in each environment.
Strategic perspective: more than AI, operational discipline
Cisco’s vision isn’t just about embedding AI into existing tools. IQ embodies operational discipline through a unified experience: aiming to organize work, prioritize effectively, and automate with control, linking telemetry with knowledge and actions. It aspires — and risks — becoming the layer across support, compliance, and optimization.
If the promise is fulfilled, organizations could reset their relationship with complexity: less noise, better anticipation, and more focus on outcomes. Otherwise, it might merely add another portal layer. Success depends on two factors: integration quality (APIs, data, processes) and the maturity of agents to convert signals into decision-making without losing control or traceability.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
What distinguishes Cisco IQ from traditional support portals?
Cisco IQ is more than a front-end. It integrates AI agents that learn from client context, perform on-demand evaluations, prioritize risks, and propose automatable actions, while consolidating inventory, lifecycle, and cases into a single seamless experience.
In which scenarios does on-prem deployment (tethered or air-gapped) make the most sense?
In regulated sectors or sensitive environments (government, defense, critical industries) where data sovereignty and network isolation are requirements. The air-gapped mode allows operation offline, maintaining key IQ capabilities.
What role do partners play with Cisco IQ?
Partners can integrate IQ into their stacks and managed services via APIs, providing proactive value (prevention, optimization, compliance) and hyperpersonalized experiences. For channels, it opens avenues for new services and recurring models based on results.
When will it be available and how will licensing work?
Cisco anticipates general availability in the second half of FY 2026. Pricing and packages haven’t been detailed yet; more info will follow as the rollout and adoption progress.
via: newsroom.cisco