JEETU PATEL
NETWORK SECURITY
Unsurprisingly, the survey has found that east-west traffic has risen up according to 67 % of the participating respondents. Continuous automated traffic generated by AI systems are up, says 61 %.
This aligns with what Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel says. In his opinion, the industry has entered what he calls a“ networking supercycle”. The reasoning here is“ the network is so central to all the AI infrastructure the world is building now”.
Incoming capacity crunch Far from a hypothesis, the capacity crunch is already a problem today with over a third of respondents reporting increased capacity demands across their networks.
AI-driven workloads would, according to 76 % of the companies surveyed, require them to upgrade their workplace networks – also known as campus and branch networks.
With only 30 % of the aggressive AI adopters fully prepared to support the projected AI growth across the network, the research shows the remaining 70 % may still be underestimating the network infrastructure challenge headed their way. The vast majority of IT decisionmakers( 93 %), however, recognise the issue and say they are accelerating modernisation initiatives.
Case in point, a retail executive recalls how an AI-loss-prevention initiative was rendered ineffective because of network latency. The tool was supposed to analyse data to detect theft, but network latency had caused a delay of about five seconds.
JEETU PATEL
TITLE: PRESIDENT & CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER
COMPANY: CISCO INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY
With three decades of technology leadership, Jeetu focuses on building high-impact products at scale, combining experience across infrastructure, applications, hardware and software to solve complex business challenges.
110 August 2026