There’s a second each December when the world feels prefer it’s operating on pure magic. Networks hit peak demand. Gross sales groups dash to shut the quarter. Customer support groups remedy pressing requests. Packages seem on doorsteps.
Each office—from retail to healthcare to manufacturing to places of work—turns into a high-performance workshop. Not the storybook workshop we grew up imagining. An actual one. Quick. Versatile. Distributed. All the time on.
If Santa needed to run it, even he’d commerce the legacy sleigh for one thing smarter and extra highly effective. As a result of to future-proof workplaces within the fashionable enterprise, magic doesn’t scale, however AI does.
As I look throughout the Cisco portfolio, I’m struck by one easy reality: The most important items a office can obtain aren’t devices, they’re applied sciences that take away friction, unlock productiveness, and assist individuals do their greatest work.
AI isn’t a present below a tree ready to be unwrapped. It’s already right here—not as hype or vacation sparkle, however as actual operational horsepower. It’s the engine quietly powering the world’s most essential workshops at this time—those you lead.
This season, I need to share some AI improvements which are already reworking how groups collaborate, join, construct, and keep mission-critical environments that preserve the world shifting. Consider these human + AI groups not as legendary helpers, however as sensible intelligence constructed to ship reliability on a world scale. With a nod to “The 12 Days of Christmas,” listed here are 12 items of AI in your workshop—despatched with real love from Cisco.
Let’s begin with presents for the bottom flooring of operations: the center of your community.
Intelligence for NetOps
Present #1: AI-assisted troubleshooting
Each vacation workshop runs on one treasured useful resource: figuring out what’s taking place proper now. Cisco AI Assistant places that visibility at your fingertips, providing you with a reside conversational window into your complete community—with out looking by dashboards or digging by menus.
Ask a easy query, like “How’s my group doing?” “Any anomalies at this time?” or “Who’re my high purchasers?” and Cisco AI Assistant assembles a full-picture response in seconds. Within the Meraki dashboard, it brings collectively well being summaries, shopper insights, coverage modifications, and efficiency traits in clear, human language and generates complementary knowledge visualizations. It additionally provides deep, internet-aware intelligence to ThousandEyes Views Explanations, distilling advanced synthetics knowledge into plainspoken and reliable explanations that let you know immediately what’s taking place and why.
Whether or not you’re opening the day’s operations, making ready for peak visitors, or conserving tabs on dozens of websites, Cisco AI Assistant turns complexity into readability.
Present #2: Automated, scalable operations
The vacation season brings a surge of modifications: pop-up areas, seasonal workers, expanded hours, fluctuating masses. When your group is stretched skinny, each configuration change turns into an opportunity for error. Cisco Workflows automates and executes multi-step duties and enforces greatest practices with repeatable, scalable, AI-operated IT workflows. When a transportation hub must validate a whole bunch of entry factors earlier than the morning traveler surge, Workflows with the Cisco AI Assistant mechanically assessments gadget well being, verifies compliance, applies updates, and alerts the group—all whereas the espresso remains to be brewing.
Present #3: Visible community planning
Each vacation workshop wants a single place the place groups can lower by the chaos, see the total image, and transfer with the type of crisp readability solely AI-powered reasoning can ship. Cisco AI Canvas does precisely that, pulling reside telemetry from Meraki, ThousandEyes, Splunk, and past into one generative person interface (UI) workspace the place everybody sees the identical reality—on the similar time.
When the season hits full tilt and also you expertise gradual Wi-Fi, lagging checkouts, or a coverage misfire, merely ask Cisco AI Canvas to research a difficulty or ticket. It connects the dots in seconds, pinpoints the actual root trigger, and drafts agentic decision processes to validate and apply focused fixes with full visibility and human oversight. With one click on, you possibly can usher in NetOps, SecOps, or anybody else wanted, reworking your ticket into a quick, centered, shared decision that retains the workshop buzzing.
Present #4: Adaptive, self-optimizing connectivity
The wi-fi community is your workshop’s heartbeat. Nothing strains it like dense crowds. With Cisco AI-Enhanced Radio Useful resource Administration (RRM), you possibly can constantly optimize wi-fi efficiency with AI-driven channel planning and frequency changes. For example, throughout an enormous on-campus occasion, as college students transfer between auditoriums in waves, AI RRM detects the surge, adjusts energy ranges, reassigns channels, and balances purchasers mechanically to attenuate interference and keep the smoothest expertise attainable.
Present #5: Accelerated prognosis with AI packet seize
Troubleshooting packet points shouldn’t really feel like digging by mountains of wrapping paper to search out one lacking label. AI packet seize allows you to seize, filter, and diagnose packet-level issues sooner with AI-assisted evaluation. At a healthcare clinic, for instance, the place Prolonged Upkeep Launch (EMR) visitors begins timing out throughout check-ins, packet seize highlights the problematic flows and suggests doubtless causes—saving each time and affected person frustration.
Present #6: Smarter, safer areas
Fashionable workshops depend upon bodily areas as a lot as on digital infrastructure. Meraki sensible cameras deliver built-in digital camera intelligence: detecting individuals and autos, monitoring occupancy, analyzing movement patterns, and producing insights proper on the edge, with out additional servers. And with Meraki MV Sense, groups can lengthen that intelligence with customized computer-vision fashions tailor-made to their atmosphere. In a busy success heart, for instance, MV Sense can flag uncommon motion round high-value stock in the course of the night time shift and alert safety immediately, turning what might have been a significant incident right into a non-event.
AI-driven collaboration: boosting group efficiency
As we transfer upstairs from the bottom flooring, our gift-giving shifts to a different essential operational issue: how individuals work collectively. No workshop—legendary or in any other case—runs nicely and not using a group that may see and listen to one another and keep aligned. Listed below are a couple of AI improvements that improve collaboration:
Present #7: Folks-focused video experiences
Vacation operations stretch groups throughout rooms, websites, and continents, difficult collaboration. With Frames mode on Cisco gadgets, AI and sensible digital camera strategies dynamically crop video feeds and maximize display screen utilization to present everybody a greater view throughout conferences. For example, in a hybrid design overview the place half the group clusters round a single desk, Frames makes every contributor equally seen regardless of the place they sit.
Present #8: Environmental consciousness
Workshops are dynamic environments the place situations like noise, occupancy, airflow, temperature, and utilization all fluctuate. Workspace insights (from Cisco Gadgets and Cisco Areas) mechanically screens and optimizes these elements. For instance, when a convention room will get too heat throughout a planning dash, workspace insights alert amenities to regulate situations and enhance consolation with out interrupting the assembly.
Present #9: Distraction-free calls
When the workshop hits peak quantity, communication turns into a lifeline. Noise is greater than a nuisance—it derails productiveness. With Webex noise removing, distracting sounds are eradicated so groups can focus. For example, throughout a assist name subsequent to a busy warehouse, Webex noise removing wipes out forklift noise, chatter, and vacation chaos—leaving solely the speaker’s voice.
Present #10: Easy assembly recall
Quick-moving seasons make monitoring selections troublesome. AI-generated assembly notes (Webex Suite) mechanically seize key factors, assignments, and subsequent steps from conferences. This ensures that as attendees depart a cross-functional name, they don’t seem to be scrambling to recollect particulars; as an alternative, they’re aligned.
Elevating the frontline: AI for buyer expertise
Lastly, there’s the frontline expertise, the a part of the workshop the place prospects depend on you most.
Present #11: Responsive, conversational assist
Prospects anticipate quick, intuitive assist—much more so in the course of the holidays. Webex AI Agent for the contact heart delivers customized, conversational experiences throughout channels, resolving inquiries and fulfilling intents effectively. As an alternative of ready on maintain or shouting “buyer consultant” at an interactive voice response (IVR) bot, prospects get fast, pure solutions that resonate with vacation spirit in each interplay.
Present #12: Seamless handoffs
When name quantity surges, Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Heart turns into your workshop’s most dependable helper. It supplies correct, automated summaries from AI brokers and IVR transfers so prospects don’t need to repeat themselves. Even in the course of the busiest season, this ensures a easy, frustration-free buyer expertise.
AI—the engine behind each workshop
When an enterprise turns into a busy workshop, the road between chaos and calm comes from the intelligence behind your operations. Intentional AI that hyperlinks each layer and house of your enterprise allows info, context, and actions to all transfer as one.
Throughout networking, collaboration, safety, operations, and buyer expertise, Cisco AI is already delivering that intelligence at this time:
- Proactively optimizing efficiency and providing one of the best view
- Simplifying advanced operations
- Answering inquiries and fulfilling buyer intent
- Defending customers and techniques
- Empowering each group—from NetOps to buyer assist
As you intend for 2026, consider Cisco not simply as a tech accomplice however as an architect of clever workplaces—constructed for agility, resilience, and regardless of the future delivers. As a result of the actual magic of the season isn’t the reward itself—it’s the system that makes supply attainable.
Let’s construct that future collectively.
