Every enterprise pursuing an AI strategy faces a critical infrastructure question that most haven’t answered yet: is your network actually ready for agentic AI? According to Enrico Mercadante, VP Networking Sales EMEA at Cisco, the answer is ‘no’.
In this interview from Cisco Live Amsterdam, Cisco’s EMEA networking sales leader explains why the networks that successfully carried organizations through cloud transformation, remote work, and digital transformation won’t cut it for the AI era. The conversation gets into infrastructure topics that most IT leaders haven’t fully considered.
What makes AI different from every previous technology shift? The answer lies in three fundamental changes to how networks operate. If you’re not planning for these shifts now, you’re already behind, according to Mercadante. This isn’t about incremental improvements to existing infrastructure. It’s about rethinking the entire role of enterprise networking.
What you’ll discover in this video
The interview discusses some of the questions that every network manager needs to answer before their AI strategy moves from PowerPoint to production. You’ll learn why connecting “every operational corner” of your company isn’t just a nice-to-have but an absolute requirement, and what that really means for organizations with disconnected IoT devices, sensors, and operational technology.
Security gets a complete rethink in the AI era. The discussion deals with identity challenges that most organizations haven’t even considered yet: How do you verify a sensor’s identity? What should an AI agent be allowed to access? How do you prove an AI agent is who it claims to be? These aren’t theoretical problems, they’re immediate challenges for any company deploying AI.
The conversation also addresses quantum computing threats that are closer than most realize. Government regulations are already forcing certain sectors to deploy quantum-safe infrastructure, and those requirements are spreading globally. The video explains what quantum-safe really means and why decisions made today will determine whether you face another expensive infrastructure refresh in just a few years.
Strategic insights you won’t find elsewhere
Cisco, of course, claims it has the answers to the questions asked of the network. We talk about the frameworks Cisco uses to assess AI readiness across six dimensions, and why infrastructure comes second, not first, in that assessment.
The conversation further gets into why organizational silos kill more AI strategies than technical limitations, and how the convergence of IT and operational technology creates unique challenges for manufacturing and transportation companies. Real-world examples from utilities deploying smart grids and manufacturers digitizing plants provide concrete context.
Finally, we also cover a questions many CFOs most likely have: how long will this infrastructure last? The answer Mercadante gives involves understanding the shift to software-defined networking and how Cisco’s Silicon One architecture enables feature updates without hardware replacement. This could fundamentally change how you budget for network infrastructure.
Key areas covered
- Why agentic AI creates unprecedented demands on network infrastructure
- The shift from desk-to-cloud to cross-enterprise, high-volume data patterns
- How quantum-safe features (secure boot, management, encryption) work
- Incremental refresh strategies that don’t require shutting down operations
- The role of data fabric in connecting siloed enterprise data
- How Cisco’s Splunk acquisition enables virtualized data repositories
- Why software-defined networking extends infrastructure lifecycle
- Real timeline expectations for when companies need to act