Cisco has officially unveiled Cisco Cloud Control, a unified platform designed for human operators and artificial intelligence agents to manage and defend critical IT infrastructure.
Announced at the Cisco Live event, the platform serves as the foundation for the company’s new AgenticOps operating model. The platform provides a single management plane, allowing users to access networking, security, compute, observability, and collaboration tools through a single login. Operators can use natural language to build custom applications and agents directly within the system, which connects to third-party platforms including AWS, ServiceNow, and Slack.
“AI agents reason and act continuously at software speed, and that changes everything about how we scale, manage, and defend our critical infrastructure.”
Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco
Features of Cisco Cloud Control
The platform integrates cross-domain telemetry to collect data across multiple operational sectors. Furthermore, it introduces autonomous agents capable of identifying system issues, testing fixes, and confirming resolution before deployment.
Operators can also use the Cisco AI Canvas, a shared generative workspace, to investigate and resolve complex technical issues in real time. Additionally, the Cloud Control Studio includes an Agent Builder tool that supports connections to more than 50 third-party tools using the open Model Context Protocol.
Infrastructure Security and Live Protect
To address rapid vulnerability exploitation, the company is integrating real-time defense mechanisms directly into its hardware. Specifically, the new Live Protect feature acts as a digital defense system that shields supported platforms from runtime vulnerabilities without requiring system reboots or maintenance windows.
This security feature is currently available on N9000 series switches and is included with the Nexus One entitlement. The company plans to expand this protection to campus smart switches and secure routers later this year to enhance enterprise cybersecurity.
Transition to Quantum-Safe Communications
Cisco also outlined its strategy to secure enterprise data against future decryption threats. The company committed to enabling quantum-safe communications capabilities across the majority of its core telecommunications portfolio by December 2026.
Starting immediately, newly introduced campus, branch, and data center routers, switches, and firewalls will feature quantum-safe secure boot by default. Meanwhile, organizations can use new Quantum Ready Assessments to identify which digital assets are most exposed to potential decryption attacks.
Support Services and Global Availability
To assist organizations with these transitions, the company introduced Resilient Infrastructure Services to assess exposure and modernize defense systems. These services utilize Cisco IQ, an artificial intelligence delivery vehicle that now supports on-premises deployments for organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements.
The Cisco Cloud Control platform is available in a controlled release in the United States starting today, with global availability to follow. The quantum-safe assessments and updated support services are scheduled for global release in July 2026.
