Cisco launches Cloud Control for humans & AI agents
Wed, 3rd Jun 2026 (Today)
Cisco has launched Cisco Cloud Control, a platform designed to let human operators and AI agents manage IT infrastructure in one environment.
The product brings together management across networking, security, compute, observability and collaboration through a single login and shared data layer. Customers can also build their own applications and agents in natural language within the platform and connect them to third-party services including AWS, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Slack, Google Cloud and Wiz.
Cloud Control sits at the centre of Cisco's AgenticOps approach, a model for running infrastructure with humans and AI agents working side by side. The system is intended to give operators a single management plane across a customer's estate while keeping people in control of actions taken by software agents.
Cisco said AI agents can detect faults, identify likely causes, carry out fixes, test changes before deployment and verify whether user experience has recovered. The platform also includes Cisco AI Canvas, a shared workspace for operators and agents to investigate incidents together, and Cloud Control Studio, where customers can build tailored agents, apps and workflows around their own policies and processes.
Within Cloud Control Studio, Agent Builder will connect to more than 50 third-party platforms and tools through native connectors or the Model Context Protocol. App Builder, meanwhile, is intended to let customers create and publish applications and workflows from natural-language prompts, with OpenAI Codex integrated into the environment.
"AI agents reason and act continuously at software speed, and that changes everything about how we scale, manage, and defend our critical infrastructure," said Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco.
"Cisco Cloud Control is a command center for agentic AI: a platform where your team and your AI agents work together, in the same environment, with the same information, and with humans in control," Patel said.
Security focus
The launch was also part of a broader security update from Cisco, which said the time between the disclosure of a vulnerability and its exploitation has narrowed sharply. In response, it expanded its Live Protect technology, designed to shield supported products from newly discovered vulnerabilities while systems remain in operation.
Live Protect is now available in N9000 series switches and is included with the Nexus One entitlement. Cisco plans to extend the protection to other products, beginning with campus and branch smart switches and later secure routers.
Cisco also announced Hybrid Mesh Firewall, which extends policy and protection across networks, applications and both Cisco and third-party firewalls. The company said the product is intended to limit the spread of damage when incidents occur across mixed environments.
Security measures aimed at AI agents were another part of the announcement. Cisco said it had made further changes to its agentic security portfolio, spanning AI Defence, Zero Trust for agents and the Agentic SOC, as organisations begin to give software agents access to business processes and systems traditionally handled by staff.
Quantum planning
Cisco also used the launch to provide more detail on its work around quantum-safe infrastructure. Newer campus, branch and data centre routers, switches and firewall series will launch with quantum-safe secure boot as standard, extending measures already introduced in campus smart switches.
That push is linked to concerns about so-called harvest now, decrypt later attacks, in which encrypted data is collected in the expectation that more powerful quantum systems could later break current cryptography. Cisco said its new Quantum Ready Assessments, delivered through Cisco IQ, are intended to help customers identify which assets are most exposed and where they should begin mitigation work.
Cisco also introduced a Quantum Resilience Framework, which it said gives enterprises a structure for adopting post-quantum cryptography across communications and products. The company aims to enable quantum-safe communications features across most of its core portfolio by December 2026.
Services layer
Alongside the product changes, Cisco announced new services intended to help customers respond to AI-related and cyber risks over a longer period. Resilient Infrastructure Services, delivered through Cisco Support and Professional Services, is structured around exposure assessment, infrastructure modernisation and defence resiliency.
Cisco IQ, which is integrated into Cloud Control, is being positioned as the delivery layer for support and professional services. It now includes a Resilient Infrastructure Playbook based on AI-driven insights and Zero Trust principles, as well as on-premises deployment options for organisations with data sovereignty requirements.
Cisco added that Peer Benchmarking within Cisco IQ uses anonymised data to compare customers with organisations of similar size, sector or infrastructure profile, including on measures such as Last Day of Support exposure and security vulnerability rates.
Cloud Control has entered controlled availability in the United States, with wider availability to follow. Quantum Ready Assessments and Peer Benchmarking in Cisco IQ are planned for global availability in July 2026.