Cisco IQ: A unified AI interface for the entire customer lifecycle
Cisco has introduced Cisco IQ, an AI-powered interface that pulls real-time insights, on-demand assessments, troubleshooting, automation, and learning into one place. It's built to help teams plan, deploy, manage, secure, and optimize Cisco technology with less tool switching and faster time-to-value.
The core is agentic AI: context-aware agents that adapt to each customer's environment and offer personalized recommendations and actions. Deployment is flexible - SaaS, on-prem tethered, or on-prem air-gapped - with secure API integration so it fits your existing stack and processes.
What this means for Customer Support
- Fewer blind spots: Unified visibility across your Cisco estate, including lifecycle timelines and last-day-of-support planning.
- Faster resolution: AI-supported troubleshooting and streamlined case management reduce back-and-forth and shorten MTTR.
- Proactive prevention: On-demand assessments for security advisories, configurations, compliance, regulatory needs, quantum readiness, and custom checks.
- Personalized assistance: Agents adapt to your environment to provide contextual insights, next-best actions, and targeted learning for your team.
- Fits your reality: Operate in SaaS or on-prem (including air-gapped) and connect Cisco IQ to your existing tools via secure APIs.
From firefighting to foresight
IT teams are stretched by fragmented tools, inconsistent support experiences, and a widening skills gap. Cisco IQ addresses that by turning services and support into a predictive, data-driven system - helping you act earlier, reduce noise, and protect uptime.
According to recent industry feedback, most leaders say vendor services matter more than ever as complexity rises. Cisco IQ aligns to that need with transparent AI, human oversight, and a single experience to move from reactive support to measurable outcomes.
Key capabilities at a glance
- Real-time insights: Dynamic visibility of assets, health, and lifecycle status across your Cisco footprint.
- On-demand assessments: Security, configuration, compliance, regulatory, and quantum readiness checks you can run anytime.
- AI troubleshooting: Guided diagnostics, case acceleration, and recommended actions grounded in Cisco expertise.
- Personalized learning: Contextual content and skill paths tied to the issues you face most often.
- Automation and agents: Agentic workflows that adapt to your environment and reduce manual effort.
How it fits into your stack
- Deployment: SaaS, on-prem tethered, or on-prem air-gapped.
- Security and trust: Transparent AI architecture with human oversight by design.
- Integration: Secure APIs to plug into your existing service desk, observability, and CMDB systems.
What leaders are saying
Liz Centoni, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer, Cisco: "With AI at its core, Cisco IQ doesn't just react. It intelligently anticipates, personalizes and transforms how you assess, deploy and operate, providing one connected experience to reduce complexity and empower IT teams to act with clarity and confidence."
Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst, ZK Research: "Cisco IQ is more than a technology: it's a shift in how IT delivers value in an AI-driven era. By reducing operational friction, lowering cognitive load, and enabling proactive action, Cisco IQ frees teams to focus on innovation and resilience rather than firefighting."
John Tan, Chief Customer Officer, Data#3: "Cisco IQ enhances the traditional services and support model into something that's far more proactive and predictive, meaning we can help customers identify and solve issues before they impact operations, build digital resiliency, and optimize operations."
Availability and next steps
Cisco IQ is expected to be generally available in Cisco's H2, FY2026. For official updates, visit the Cisco Newsroom: newsroom.cisco.com.
- Map where proactive assessments could prevent incidents in your environment.
- Identify 2-3 workflows to automate (case triage, compliance checks, lifecycle planning).
- Prep integrations with your ticketing system, CMDB, and observability tools.
- Upskill your team on agentic AI workflows for support. Explore role-based options here: Complete AI Training - Courses by Job.
Why this matters now
Support leaders are measured on uptime, CSAT, and cost per ticket. Cisco IQ gives you a practical path to improve all three: fewer incidents through prevention, faster resolution with AI-guided troubleshooting, and clearer visibility so you can plan ahead instead of reacting.
If your team is spending the week chasing alerts and context across tools, this is a chance to simplify the stack, standardize workflows, and bring your support function closer to the business outcomes that matter.
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