Cisco Unveils Contextual AI at Splunk .conf26

A recent study by Omdia found that AI is driving new infrastructure investments across public cloud, on-premises, and edge environments. However, enterprises struggle to generate returns from AI due to its implementation on platforms not designed for agents.

Cisco addressed this issue at Splunk .conf26, showcasing how it integrates Splunk across its portfolio to provide context and control for trusted agents.

For example, an AI site reliability engineer (SRE) agent requires telemetry data, contextual data, and operational and business context to make informed decisions. Cisco's Machine Data Lake allows full-fidelity logs and events to land in a low-cost storage tier without indexing, enabling humans or agents to promote relevant data when needed.

The Cisco Data Fabric brings together three categories of data: raw machine telemetry, contextual data, and operational and business context. This reduces the need for agents to access sensitive information and enables enterprises to control what agents can do.