Follow the logic

Other companies can adopt the logic of the approach, although they may decide not to replicate Cisco’s specific technical stack, she says. The architecture, including dual model integration, hybrid multicloud orchestration, RAG as a service, and microservices, reflects Cisco’s scale and engineering capacity, she notes.

The underlying set of decisions is sound, she adds. Companies should give employees a governed internal AI environment before shadow AI proliferates; address fragmented tools with a unified intelligent interface; build access controls that keep humans accountable for what AI tools do on their behalf; and frame AI to employees as something that raises the quality and reach of their work.

Cisco’s innovation lies in how the individual components of the AI assistant work as a system, Loomis says. Several individual pieces, including RAG pipelines, GPT-4o access, OneDrive integration, microservices architecture, are available elsewhere, but Cisco has put them all together.