Extreme Networks Inc. used its Extreme Connect 2026 user conference this week to make a strong case that artificial intelligence-driven networking has finally arrived. Building on Platform ONE, the company rolled out a full-stack vision spanning new Wi-Fi 7 access points, enhanced fabric-ready switching and a second-generation artificial intelligence layer called Agent ONE, designed to act less like a chatbot and more like an operational co-worker for NetOps teams.
Extreme Networks Inc. is holding its user event, Extreme Connect 2025 this week in Paris — a fitting city for the event as it’s home to many customers of Extreme, including the Musee d’Orsay and Charles De Gaulle Airport. The cloud networking provider used the event to announce several new products that focused on making the network simpler to deploy and easier to manage.
Networking and complexity go hand in hand, like chocolate and peanut butter. Though this has been the norm, it’s playing havoc with business operations. A recent ZK Research/Cube Research study found that 93% of organizations state the network is more critical to business operations than two years ago. In the same period, 80% said the network was more complex. Increasing complexity leads to blind spots, unplanned downtime, security breaches and other issues that affect businesses.
The network continues to grow in importance as a strategic business asset. A recent joint study between ZK Research and The Cube Research found that 93% of organizations felt the network was more critical to business operations than two years ago. At the same time, 80% of respondents believe the network has grown in complexity in that same time frame. The continuation of these two trends will lead to an untenable situation.
Extreme Networks Inc. recently held its annual user conference, Connect, in Fort Worth, Texas, where everything is big. In keeping with that tradition, Extreme had its own big news from the show. Day 1 news involved Extreme being approved for standard power for the 6-gigahertz spectrum for Wi-Fi. This new band was added to Wi-Fi 6E and 7, providing clean spectrum and speeds north of 1 gigabits per second.