Introduction
IT teams aren’t just managing networks anymore; they’re operating complex, AI-driven digital ecosystems that span owned and unowned infrastructure, cloud, Internet, and applications. Traffic patterns are more dynamic, dependencies are deeper, and skills gaps plus fragmented tools make it harder than ever to move fast without increasing risk.
The challenge in 2026 isn’t simply visibility. It’s operational trust at machine speed. Teams need end-to-end intelligence that cuts across domains and workflows, not just to surface issues but to help them act with confidence. That’s why Assurance must evolve from monitoring into an AI-powered, continuously validating operational layer that simplifies how teams work while helping to ensure every action, human or AI-driven, improves outcomes.
Today we’re introducing new innovations aimed at meeting those needs, through enhanced AgenticOps capabilities, as well as deeper insights into the enterprise wireless environments that play an increasingly important role within enterprise network domains.
AI That Turns Complexity into Control
The problem isn’t data. It’s turning constant signals into confident action. As environments stretch across campus, branch, cloud, SaaS, and the Internet, operations teams are flooded with telemetry but still left guessing what matters, what changed, and what to do next.
Cisco’s AI-powered Assurance platform helps close that gap. By correlating cross-domain signals, explaining cause and impact, and continuously validating outcomes, it transforms raw visibility into operational intelligence teams can trust, so they can move at machine speed while minimizing risk.
At Cisco Live Amsterdam, we’re demonstrating our commitment to AI-powered workflows and AgenticOps with solutions intended to simplify how our customers use our products, through a set of capabilities that extends not only across Cisco’s portfolio, but to our customers’ broader operational models and best practices.
These include:
- AI Canvas – AI Canvas eliminates the swivel-chair operations that slow teams down. Instead of stitching together tools and chasing clues across systems, it brings shared, cross-domain context from Meraki, ThousandEyes, and Splunk into a single investigative workspace built for faster root-cause determination and better decisions. Designed for modern operational realities, AI Canvas queries live data directly from source platforms, which can reduce ingestion overhead and contribute to reduced latency, cost, and compliance exposure. Governance and security are built in, with source-aligned role-based access, human approval for actions, and full audit-ready traceability, so teams gain speed without sacrificing control.
- AI Assistant in Catalyst Center – Extending the power of generative AI to simplify operations for campus, branch and wireless networks, the AI Assistant enables natural language queries for fast, simplified operations across the Catalyst portfolio. The AI Assistant can turn simple queries into real insight: providing operational clarity, guiding investigations, explaining impact, and helping NetOps teams take the right steps with transparency and human control.
- Intelligent Testing for Network and Application Synthetics – Building upon the industry’s richest and widely accessible collection of synthetic tests, Intelligent Testing is an adaptive, AI-powered configuration mode in the ThousandEyes platform that gives customers guided recommendations that the system continuously refines based on observed performance patterns and business dependencies. Intelligent Testing simplifies the setup and ongoing management of network and application synthetic tests, providing a simplified workflow that reduces the need for complex decision making on the part of the user by automating the underlying best practice test configurations. Tests are not only created, but updated automatically, providing continual validation of performance that technicians can use to identify issues before users are impacted.
- ThousandEyes MCP Server – AI assistants have become popular and powerful troubleshooting partners for technical teams. By providing technicians with easier access to the data they need, they help streamline complex problem-solving workflows and enhance overall team effectiveness, regardless of a technician’s familiarity or expertise with user interfaces or APIs. ThousandEyes MCP Server is a secure, publicly accessible endpoint that leverages industry-standard Model Context Protocol (MCP) to expose ThousandEyes metrics, events, and alerts to MCP-compliant AI assistants. Operating within the broader MCP-enabled ecosystem, MCP Server gives technical, as well as less technical stakeholders access to ThousandEyes through natural language queries, replacing manual navigation to assist in reducing the amount of time and effort needed to identify and resolve even very complex issues.
Continuous Intelligence for a New Wireless Era
“Visibility from anywhere” is a core pillar in delivering end-to-end assurance. In short, IT teams need the ability to see, measure, and understand employee or end-user experience from where they are to proactively identify and remediate issues.
This has become especially true for wireless networks, which anchor an ever-broadening set of business uses cases, including BYOD and hybrid work initiatives, inventory management, point-of-sale, asset tracking, field operations, and others that employ devices such as untethered laptops, mobile phones, smart tablets, and handheld scanners.
According to Cisco’s 2024 Global Networking Trends report, 72% of IT professionals expect to leverage centralized management across their wireless and wired domains within the next two years to handle increasing complexity, including rapid shifts to Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 to support high-bandwidth applications and AI-driven operations, and a workforce that is increasingly hybrid, with 95% of organizations now allowing employees to use personal devices for work in some capacity.
To help IT teams manage the complexities of today’s Wi-Fi environments, Cisco introduces two innovations aimed at assuring wireless experience: Wireless Active Testing, a new capability that integrates the ThousandEyes Platform with Cisco Catalyst Wi-Fi, and AI Packet Analyzer.
- Wireless Active Testing – Wireless Active Testing with ThousandEyes gives Cisco Wireless 9172H Access Points the ability to act as synthetic clients, proactively identifying Wi-Fi issues in real time. By integrating the ThousandEyes Endpoint Agent, these wall plate APs perform end-to-end wireless onboarding and application performance tests directly at the network edge, delivering wireless assurance insights that help teams work towards the goal of optimizing user experiences.
- AI Packet Analyzer – AI Packet Analyzer is an AI-driven enhancement to Proactive PCAP that automates and enhances packet capture analysis. AI Packet Analyzer applies a contextualized PCAP model to combine client failure events with configuration data for root cause analysis, allowing network administrators to investigate packet capture files directly within the management dashboard. This automation simplifies operations, reduces the need for manual packet capture and site visits, and accelerates troubleshooting.
See These Capabilities in Action
These innovations can all be seen this week at Cisco Live 2026 Amsterdam within the Digital Resilience, Future-proofed Workplaces, and Cisco Platform Advantage areas of the World of Solutions.
Stop by to learn more about ThousandEyes and speak with our team about these exciting new announcements. Or attend one of our many live sessions to dive deeper into the use cases that matter most to you.
Some of the products and features described herein remain in varying stages of development and will be offered on a when-and-if-available basis. The delivery timeline of these products and features is subject to change at the sole discretion of Cisco, and Cisco will have no liability for delay in the delivery or failure to deliver any of the products or features set forth in this document.