It was a great week at Cisco Live in Melbourne, and I had the opportunity to interview 3 global leaders at the analyst sessions. Here are some key highlights:
Espen Løberg – VP and GM, Collaboration Devices
I asked Espen about how he sees the whole workplace collaboration market changing in the next few years and he mentioned – ‘’Imagine how we have noise cancellation now on every call and users don’t even notice it. With AI we are entering into a phase where the quality of the room experience, video meetings, problems with the audio and camera or the headset will be naturally and seamlessly detected by multiple AI agents and bots on the back end that will work to correct these inefficiencies in ”real time” so meeting experiences will adjust itself accordingly without the need for users to do anything”
Abhiram Kramadhati Krmadhati – Director AI Go to Market and Ops
I asked Abhiram about what it takes to get your Voice AI deployment right? While there are many important stages in the design of the solution, Abhi spoke about the importance of understanding Active Data and Passive Data.
Active Data is data generated as part of the ongoing conversation in real time, while Passive Data looks at data that sits in an Enterprise’s CRM, Knowledge, and other Enterprise Business Applications. He also talked about how Cisco’s customers are seeing success through Topic Analytics. This is where the Cisco solution will analyse calls over the last 3 months, then do a deep dive into why people are calling the contact centre. It is through this process that you uncover why, for example that an appointment cancellation with an agent can take up to 15 minutes!
Amey Parandekar – VP of Product and GM for Cisco’s Calling Business
Amey and I spoke about how while there is growth in cloud calling, the APAC market is largely still an on-premises market, and the on-premises and hybrid market remains relevant for government, defense, emergency services, and many other mission-critical sectors. Many of these customers will not move to the cloud but will want the ability to innovate with AI technologies while they are on these architectures. Cisco’s strength, underpinning all of these, is its ability to serve customers on any architecture of their choice and to guarantee high levels of security in calling.
The big news for the APAC region is the expansion of Webex Calling’s presence in India with dedicated data centers in Mumbai and Chennai. 2026 will also mark the launch of Webex Contact Center in India. India is poised to see good growth in 2026 and Cisco is setting itself up well to take on this opportunity!
Thank you, Archana Shah and Ruth Busbee, for the opportunity to be at these sessions! Cisco Anne Purvis-Blomquist Alison St.Cyr (Parker) Sophie McNeill
Inside Cisco Live: AI, Voice, and What’s Next for Collaboration
