Artificial intelligence dominated headlines and keynotes at every event I’ve attended this year, including the recent Cisco Live 2026. Though the thirst for AI has been insatiable for a couple of years, customer feedback at the event showed that the era of AI curiosity has given way to AI urgency. Information technology and business leaders are no longer satisfied with conversational chatbots or basic AI scribes that merely summarize meetings or draft text. They want systems that proactively identify and resolve problems across their massive, complex IT estates.