Cisco Systems today launched Cloud Control, a platform designed to help enterprises manage, secure, and automate IT environments increasingly populated by AI agents.
Announced at Cisco Live in Las Vegas, the platform integrates networking, security, observability, and collaboration tools into a single operational layer for both human administrators and autonomous agents. Cisco executives described it as a response to the shift from chatbots to "agentic AI"-digital coworkers that operate continuously, interact with other agents, and directly access enterprise systems.
"Every action an agent takes is a combination of a routing challenge, a trust decision, and a telemetry event," said Jeff Schultz, Cisco's senior vice president of portfolio strategy.
Cloud Control is the foundation of Cisco's AgenticOps model, which shifts IT and security tasks from manual processes to agent-driven orchestration with human oversight. The platform includes Cloud Control Studio for building custom agents and applications, and AI Canvas, a collaborative workspace for operators and AI agents to troubleshoot issues using shared context.
On the security front, Cisco introduced Live Protect, which applies security controls directly to running network infrastructure-without requiring reboots. New capabilities like DefenseClaw aim to secure AI agents themselves, while Splunk's federated search and machine data lake enable large-scale telemetry analysis.
Cisco also committed to making much of its product portfolio quantum-safe by the end of 2026, offering assessments to help customers guard against future "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks.
Cloud Control enters limited availability in the U.S. today, with global rollout planned for later.