5 Security, Networking and AI Updates Revealed At Cisco Live EMEA

From Cisco Security Cloud and Cisco Networking Cloud updates to new AI capabilties and an expanded partnership with Nvidia, here’s what the tech giant announced this week at Cisco Live EMEA 2024.

Cisco Live Across The Pond

Cisco Systems kicked off 2024 with Cisco Live EMEA in Amsterdam this week and the world-renowned tech giant had plenty of news to share. The headline? Cisco is getting serious about making AI pervasive throughout its entire portfolio, from networking and security to observability and collaboration.

For starters, the San Jose, Calif.-based company revealed a new addition to its Security Cloud platform called Cisco Identity Intelligence, as well as a series of security updates as Cisco continuous to build out the unified platform. Over in networking, the company introduced a handful of updates as Cisco continues to unify its Networking Cloud platform and the Security Cloud platform. Cisco Webex is also getting a boost with more AI integrated across Meetings and Contact Center to improve customer experience. The giant also shared that it was expanding its relationship with chip maker Nvidia to bring more AI infrastructure offerings for the data center to the masses.

Here are the security, networking, and AI-based updates that Cisco shared on Tuesday at Cisco Live EMEA 2024 that partners around the globe should know about.

Cisco Identity Intelligence

Cisco Systems took to the event to introduce Cisco Identity Intelligence, an offering that works by running on top of customers’ existing identity stores. The feature, which is built into Cisco Security Cloud, lets IT administrators discover their whole identity population, clean up vulnerable accounts, eliminate unused and risky privileges, detect behavior anomalies and block high-risk access attempts. This can all be done without replacing any of their current cybersecurity tools, Cisco said.

Cisco Identity Intelligence will give customers and partners more visibility through their existing solutions, such as smart authentication with Cisco Duo to find unusual patterns based on behavior, smart access with Cisco Secure Access to verify the authentication decision and block unusual or high-risk behaviors, and smart threat detection with Cisco XDR to correlate identity signals to provide missing information that traditional endpoint and network security tools could miss, according to the company.

Cisco Identity Intelligence will be available within Cisco’s fiscal 2024 year, which ends in July.

Cisco Security Cloud Updates

Cisco keeps adding more generative AI features to Cisco Security Cloud in an effort to inject AI across the entire portfolio. The company at the event revealed three new AI-based features.

The new AI Assistant in Secure Access feature lets users create security access policies using generative AI prompts and natnural language within Cisco’s Secure Services Edge (SSE) offering. The new Securing AI feature in Secure Access will automatically detect and protect intellectual property as it flows in and out of AI systems. The capability allows for the safe use of tools like ChatGPT, according to Cisco. thirdly, Cisco Email Threat Defense for AI-based email threat detection now uses AI to evaluate emails for malicious intent.

The three new updates are available now within Cisco’s SSE offering.

Cisco/Nvidia Partnership

Two giants in the tech space, Cisco and Nvidia have revealed an expanded partnership in which the two companies will build AI infrastructure offerings for the data center.

Cisco is bringing to the table its Ethernet networking prowess and its worldwide partner ecosystem, while Nvidia will bring its extensive expertise in graphics processing units and AI hardware and software to the partnership. The two companies will bring cloud-based and on-premises AI infrastructure, networking and software, including infrastructure management, secure AI infrastructure, observable end-to-end AI solutions and access to Nvidia AI Enterprise software that supports the building and deployment of advanced AI and generative AI workloads to enterprises, the two companies said.

Cisco and Nvidia’s Ethernet networking-based solutions will be sold through Cisco’s global channel partners, who will be able to wrap their own professional services and support around the offerings, Cisco said.

Cisco Networking Cloud

Just like with Security Cloud, Cisco continues to build out its Networking Cloud platform strategy by working in more security and intelligence across the networking portfolio to tighten the link between the once very separate networking and security worlds.

Cisco introduced new integrations between Cisco Networking Cloud and Cisco Secure Access to improve networking and security management, and automated monitoring so that businesses and channel partners have more insights into their networks, devices and application performance metrics. These integrations are available today with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and ThousandEyes.

Cisco has been on a mission to simply its network management platforms. To that end, the company has introduced cloud monitoring for Catalyst Wireless, which lets customers manage select Catalyst wireless devices in the Meraki dashboard, a highly sought-after management style from customers and partners alike. Cloud Monitoring for Catalyst Wireless supports the Catalyst 9800 Wireless Controllers and most Catalyst Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E access points, according to Cisco.

Webex AI Updates

It would be remiss to leave out Cisco’s globally popular collaboration portfolio, led by the renowned Webex brand. The company’s Webex arm has announced the availability of AI Assistant for Webex features across the Webex Suite and Contact Center, which includes Meetings and Vidcast Summaries and message translation, the company said.

Webex also introduced Low Carbon Mode to minimize non-renewable energy use for organizations, as well as Webex for longtime technology partner Apple Vision Pro.