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 resolve pressing requests. Packages seem on doorsteps.
Each office—from retail to healthcare to manufacturing to workplaces—turns into a high-performance workshop. Not the storybook workshop we grew up imagining. An actual one. Quick. Versatile. Distributed. At all times 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 fact: The most important presents a office can obtain aren’t devices, they’re applied sciences that take away friction, unlock productiveness, and assist folks do their greatest work.
AI isn’t a present underneath 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 necessary workshops in the present day—those you lead.
This season, I wish to share some AI improvements which are already remodeling how groups collaborate, join, construct, and preserve 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 worldwide scale. With a nod to “The 12 Days of Christmas,” listed below are 12 presents of AI to 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
Reward #1: AI-assisted troubleshooting
Each vacation workshop runs on one treasured useful resource: realizing what’s taking place proper now. Cisco AI Assistant places that visibility at your fingertips, supplying you with a dwell conversational window into your complete community—with out looking by way of dashboards or digging by way of menus.
Ask a easy query, like “How’s my group doing?” “Any anomalies in the present day?” or “Who’re my prime 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 adjustments, and efficiency traits in clear, human language and generates complementary knowledge visualizations. It additionally provides deep, internet-aware intelligence to ThousandEyes Views Explanations, distilling complicated synthetics knowledge into plainspoken and reliable explanations that inform you immediately what’s taking place and why.
Whether or not you’re opening the day’s operations, making ready for peak visitors, or holding tabs on dozens of web sites, Cisco AI Assistant turns complexity into readability.
Reward #2: Automated, scalable operations
The vacation season brings a surge of adjustments: pop-up places, seasonal workers, expanded hours, fluctuating masses. When your crew 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 lots of of entry factors earlier than the morning traveler surge, Workflows with the Cisco AI Assistant mechanically assessments system well being, verifies compliance, applies updates, and alerts the crew—all whereas the espresso remains to be brewing.
Reward #3: Visible community planning
Each vacation workshop wants a single place the place groups can reduce by way of 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 dwell telemetry from Meraki, ThousandEyes, Splunk, and past into one generative consumer interface (UI) workspace the place everybody sees the identical fact—on the identical time.
When the season hits full tilt and also you expertise sluggish Wi-Fi, lagging checkouts, or a coverage misfire, merely ask Cisco AI Canvas to research a problem or ticket. It connects the dots in seconds, pinpoints the true 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 herald NetOps, SecOps, or anybody else wanted, remodeling your ticket into a quick, centered, shared decision that retains the workshop buzzing.
Reward #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 a large 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 reduce interference and preserve the smoothest expertise potential.
Reward #5: Accelerated analysis with AI packet seize
Troubleshooting packet points shouldn’t really feel like digging by way of mountains of wrapping paper to search out one lacking label. AI packet seize lets you seize, filter, and diagnose packet-level issues quicker 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.
Reward #6: Smarter, safer areas
Trendy workshops rely upon bodily areas as a lot as on digital infrastructure. Meraki good cameras convey built-in digital camera intelligence: detecting folks and automobiles, monitoring occupancy, analyzing movement patterns, and producing insights proper on the edge, with out further servers. And with Meraki MV Sense, groups can lengthen that intelligence with customized computer-vision fashions tailor-made to their atmosphere. In a busy achievement heart, for instance, MV Sense can flag uncommon motion round high-value stock throughout the evening shift and alert safety immediately, turning what may have been a serious incident right into a non-event.
AI-driven collaboration: boosting crew efficiency
As we transfer upstairs from the bottom flooring, our gift-giving shifts to a different vital operational issue: how folks work collectively. No workshop—legendary or in any other case—runs effectively and not using a crew that may see and listen to one another and keep aligned. Listed here are a number of AI improvements that improve collaboration:
Reward #7: Individuals-focused video experiences
Vacation operations stretch groups throughout rooms, websites, and continents, difficult collaboration. With Frames mode on Cisco gadgets, AI and good digital camera methods dynamically crop video feeds and maximize display utilization to provide everybody a greater view throughout conferences. For example, in a hybrid design evaluation the place half the crew clusters round a single desk, Frames makes every contributor equally seen irrespective of the place they sit.
Reward #8: Environmental consciousness
Workshops are dynamic environments the place circumstances like noise, occupancy, airflow, temperature, and utilization all fluctuate. Workspace insights (from Cisco Gadgets and Cisco Areas) mechanically displays and optimizes these elements. For instance, when a convention room will get too heat throughout a planning dash, workspace insights alert services to regulate circumstances and enhance consolation with out interrupting the assembly.
Reward #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.
Reward #10: Easy assembly recall
Quick-moving seasons make monitoring choices troublesome. AI-generated assembly notes (Webex Suite) mechanically seize key factors, assignments, and subsequent steps from conferences. This ensures that as attendees go away a cross-functional name, they aren’t 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 clients depend on you most.
Reward #11: Responsive, conversational assist
Clients count on quick, intuitive assist—much more so throughout the holidays. Webex AI Agent for the contact heart delivers personalised, conversational experiences throughout channels, resolving inquiries and fulfilling intents effectively. As a substitute of ready on maintain or shouting “buyer consultant” at an interactive voice response (IVR) bot, clients get fast, pure solutions that resonate with vacation spirit in each interplay.
Reward #12: Seamless handoffs
When name quantity surges, Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Middle turns into your workshop’s most dependable helper. It gives correct, automated summaries from AI brokers and IVR transfers so clients don’t should repeat themselves. Even throughout the busiest season, this ensures a clean, 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 area of what you are promoting 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 in the present day:
- Proactively optimizing efficiency and providing the most effective view
- Simplifying complicated operations
- Answering inquiries and fulfilling buyer intent
- Defending customers and techniques
- Empowering each crew—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 true magic of the season isn’t the reward itself—it’s the system that makes supply potential.
Let’s construct that future collectively.