Thought Leader | Technology Consultant

ZKast

ZKast, is a thought leadership series where Zeus Kerravala interviews thought leaders from the technology community. To be a guest on ZKast, please contact Zeus Kerravala at zeus@zkresearch.com

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The holiday season is here, and networking is officially "cool" again! 🎄 In this special holiday episode of What’s New in Networking, Zeus Kerravala (ZK Research) and Bob Laliberte (theCUBE Research) sit down to analyze the massive shifts coming to the networking industry in 2026.From the "rebirth of voice" to the explosion of Physical AI, the network is no longer just plumbing—it’s the critical foundation for the AI era. Zeus and Bob discuss how the convergence of security, observability, and networking is forcing a cultural shift in the enterprise, and why the campus network is about to see a massive refresh cycle.In this episode:The 4 Dimensions of Scaling: Why scale-up, scale-out, scale-across, and "scale-in" are dominating data center conversations.Wi-Fi 7 vs. Private 5G: Why Wi-Fi 7 is seeing a faster uptick than expected and how it coexists with hybrid edge networks.The Rise of Physical AI: How robotics and IoT are moving networking from "best effort" to ultra-low latency and deterministic performance.Vendor Rapid Fire: Arista: Can they conquer the campus with the same performance lead they have in the cloud?Extreme Networks: The execution year for their "Platform One" strategy.HPE/Juniper: How the Mist AI engine is integrating into the broader HPE ecosystem.NVIDIA: Are they now a bona-fide networking vendor? (The $7B/quarter answer).Dark Horses to Watch: Why companies like Meter, Fortinet, and a resurgent Riverbed are poised to disrupt the market in 2026.Table of Contents:0:00 - Holiday Greetings & 2026 Networking Outlook 1:45 - The Convergence of Security, Observability, and Networking 3:30 - Why Wi-Fi 7 is a Game Changer for the Campus 5:10 - Physical AI: Rethinking Security for Autonomous Devices 7:00 - Is Compute part of the Network or vice versa? 9:15 - Arista’s Campus Push & the VeloCloud Factor 11:30 - Extreme Networks: From Connectivity to Observability 13:45 - HPE + Juniper: The Future of the AI Factory 16:10 - NVIDIA’s Spectrum-X and the Ethernet vs. InfiniBand debate 18:30 - Dark Horses: Meter, Nile, and the "Sonic" Opportunity 21:00 - The Return of Riverbed: Why WAN Op is back for AI Data 24:00 - Broadcom vs. Marvell: The Silicon Battleground 26:30 - Closing Thoughts: Who will take the biggest slice of the pie?Follow Zeus Kerravala on X/Twitter: @zkerravala Follow Bob Laliberte on X/Twitter: @BobLaliberte@AristaNetworks @ExtremeNetworks @HPE @JuniperNetworks @hpenetworking @Cisco @CiscoMerakiOfficial @NVIDIA @riverbed @broadcom @MarvellTechnology #Networking #AI #WiFi7 #Arista #Cisco #HPE #Juniper #NVIDIA #TechTrends2026 #DataCenter #ZKast #ZKResearch #thecuberesearch #thecube

Zeus Kerravala 21.8K

2025 ZKast #206 - Networking Trends in 2026: AI, Wi-Fi 7, and the Vendor Rapid Fire | Bob and Zeus

Zeus Kerravala December 19, 2025 6:14 pm

2025 ZKast #206 - Networking Trends in 2026: AI, Wi-Fi 7, and the Vendor Rapid Fire | Bob and Zeus

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2025 ZKast #206 - Networking Trends in 2026: AI, Wi-Fi 7, and the Vendor Rapid Fire | Bob and Zeus

Zeus Kerravala 19.8K views December 19, 2025 6:14 pm

Is the era of "break-fix" IT support finally over?In this episode of ZKast, Zeus Kerravala of ZK Research sits down with Sandeep Milar, SVP of Product Management for Cisco CX, at Cisco’s San Jose offices. They dive deep into the launch of Cisco IQ, the unified AI interface designed to modernize how businesses manage their infrastructure and relationships with Cisco.Cisco CX accounts for a quarter of the company’s revenue, yet it often flies under the radar. Sandeep explains how Cisco is leveraging its 40 years of proprietary TAC data and human expertise to move beyond simple troubleshooting into a world of proactive, personalized, and predictive customer experience.In this video, you’ll learn:What is Cisco IQ? Discover the foundation that connects disparate services, support, and professional services into a single, AI-driven interface.The Power of Asset Management: How Cisco IQ automates the "mundane and boring" reconciliation of hardware, software, and crypto assets.Deterministic vs. Probabilistic AI: Why Cisco uses Gen AI to synthesize data but relies on automation for deterministic, "pass/fail" business outcomes.Flexible Deployment: How Cisco IQ meets the needs of every organization through SaaS, on-prem (no-tether), and fully air-gapped sovereign cloud versions.The Future for Partners: How Cisco IQ helps partners shift from low-value manual audits to high-value strategic remediation and upskilling.Outcome-Based Support: Real-world metrics including reduced risk, increased uptime, and 30-40% savings in manual effort."Support should not be about waiting for something to fail. It’s about helping our customers see around corners." — Sandeep MehraTable of Contents:0:00 - Introduction 1:15 - The Role of Cisco CX: More than just support 2:45 - What is Cisco IQ? The Unified AI Interface 4:30 - Solving the Asset Management & Renewal Headache 6:10 - Moving from Periodic Assessments to "Always-On" Compliance 8:20 - Leveraging 40 Years of TAC Data & Cisco Data Fabric 10:45 - SaaS, On-Prem, and Air-Gapped Deployment Models 13:10 - How Cisco IQ Empowers the Partner Ecosystem 16:40 - Measuring Success: Risk Reduction & Time Savings 19:00 - Conclusion: Redefining the Industry Standard for CXFor more on Cisco CX visit: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/services/index.html#Cisco #CiscoCX #CiscoIQ #ArtificialIntelligence #AgenticAI #Networking #ITSupport #DigitalTransformation #ZCast #ZKResearch

2025 ZKast #205 - Cisco IQ: Transforming Support from Reactive to Predictive with Agentic AI

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2025 ZKast #205 - Cisco IQ: Transforming Support from Reactive to Predictive with Agentic AI

Zeus Kerravala 22K views December 19, 2025 12:38 pm

Can #AI turn your contact center into a revenue generator? Live from the @Talkdesk Analyst Summit in Savannah, Zeus Kerravala (ZK Research) sits down with Melinda Aguirre from Ouro (formerly Netspend).Ouro provides financial empowerment to the underserved and unbanked—a customer base that often requires high-empathy, high-validation interactions. Melinda shares how Ouro is moving away from a "Frankenstein" legacy system to a unified cloud platform, leveraging Talkdesk to automate the "messy work" so agents can focus on the customer.Key Topics in this Episode:The Unbanked Demographic: Why financial services for underserved communities still require a human touch and a "rebirth of voice."The AI Helper: How Talkdesk’s AI call transcripts and summaries are eliminating the burden of manual note-taking for agents.Agentic AI & Upskilling: Why Ouro is piloting AI to handle redundant tasks, allowing human agents to focus on upselling and cross-selling.KPI Transformation: Moving beyond Average Handle Time (AHT) toward company-wide metrics and revenue-based performance.The Unified Platform Advantage: Why having IVR, voice, email, chat, and knowledge management in one place is essential for the AI era.A 25-Year Modernization: The challenges and rewards of moving a legacy financial services company from on-prem to the cloud.Table of contents: 0:00 - Introduction to Oro & the Unbanked Market 1:45 - The Changing Landscape of CX & BPO Collaboration 3:30 - Why Voice is Still King in Financial Services 5:10 - AI Strategy: Customer-Facing vs. Agent Assistance 7:20 - The Impact of Automated Call Summaries 9:45 - Transitioning from Cost Center to Revenue Line 11:15 - Why Ouro Chose Talkdesk over Legacy Vendors 13:30 - The Importance of a Unified Data Stack for AILearn more about the participants: Talkdesk: https://www.talkdesk.com/ Ouro: https://www.ouro.com/#CX #CustomerExperience #FinTech #Talkdesk #AI #ContactCenter #DigitalTransformation #CloudComputing #ZCastTechnical Concept: The Unified CX StackTo understand why Melinda emphasizes a "unified platform" over a "Frankenstein" approach, it helps to visualize how data flows through a modern cloud contact center versus a legacy one.The unified approach ensures that AI has access to a single source of truth—including IVR inputs, previous chat transcripts, and CRM data—to provide the most accurate assistance to the agent.

2025 ZKast #204 - Banking for the Unbanked: How Ouro is Transforming CX w Talkdesk AI

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2025 ZKast #204 - Banking for the Unbanked: How Ouro is Transforming CX w Talkdesk AI

Zeus Kerravala 21.5K views December 18, 2025 5:28 pm

Is your network ready for the "Army of Agents"? From the Expo Hall at AWS re:Invent 2025, Zeus Kerravala (ZK Research) sits down with Greg Adgate, VP of Global Partner Programs at Equinix, to discuss the massive infrastructure shift required to support the next generation of AI.As AWS moves toward a world of billions of autonomous agents, the underlying network can no longer be a "piecemeal" afterthought. In this episode, Zeus and Greg explore the rise of Distributed AI and how Equinix is providing the "connective glue" to make global AI inference a reality.Key Topics Covered:The Agentic Shift: Discussing AWS CEO Matt Garman’s vision of an AI agent-driven world and the massive strain it puts on traditional networking.Distributed AI & Fabric: How Equinix Fabric allows organizations to move at "AI speed," connecting data and models across cities and continents.The Visibility Gap: Why real-time visualization is the only way to manage the spiky, unpredictable bandwidth demands of AI inferencing.Security at the Edge: Moving away from security as an "overlay" to an integrated, dynamic control layer that protects data in motion.The Death of the Walled Garden: Why AWS is finally embracing hybrid multi-cloud and how Equinix helps customers manage data that lives everywhere.The Power of Ecosystems: Why "doing it yourself" is no longer an option and how partners bring the skills, capital, and innovation needed for AI success.Table of Contents: 0:00 - Introduction at AWS re:Invent 2025 1:15 - AWS Vision: From Tooling to an Army of Agents 2:45 - The Role of Network Fabric in AI Infrastructure 4:30 - Defining Distributed AI: The Glue for LLMs 6:00 - Solving the Bandwidth & Inference Visibility Problem 8:15 - Why AI Security Must Be Built-In, Not Bolted-On 10:30 - AWS, Hybrid Cloud, and the Edge Reality 12:00 - The Importance of Partner Ecosystems in AI 14:00 - Final Advice: How to Get Your Network AI-ReadyLearn more about Equinix & AWS: https://www.equinix.com/resources/infographics/aws-direct-connect@amazon @amazonwebservices @Equinix #AWS #reInvent2025 #Equinix #AI #Networking #DistributedAI #EdgeComputing #CloudInfrastructure #AgenticAI

2025 ZKast #203 - Beyond the Walled Garden: How Equinix Enables Multi-Cloud AI for AWS Customers

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2025 ZKast #203 - Beyond the Walled Garden: How Equinix Enables Multi-Cloud AI for AWS Customers

Zeus Kerravala 19.7K views December 18, 2025 1:24 pm

Is the "Copilot" era over? Join Zeus Kerravala (ZK Research) and Juanita Coley (Solid Rock Consulting) for the final 2025 episode of What’s New in CX. In this deep-dive retrospective, Zeus and Juanita look back at a year defined by the evolution of AI from a simple assistant to a "true coworker" and discuss the massive consolidation in the Workforce Management (WFM) space.In this episode, we discuss:The Agentic Shift: Why 2025 was the year AI became an entity in the workforce, and why "Agent-to-Agent" communication is the next big hurdle for 2026.The WFM Renaissance: From RingCentral and Zoom to the Thoma Bravo/Calabrio/Verint moves—why everyone is suddenly obsessed with workforce management.The "Walled Garden" Problem: Why interoperability between giants like Salesforce, Microsoft, and CCaaS vendors is still a major pain point for customer experience.Market Leadership Shifts: Is the dominance of legacy players like Avaya and Genesys fading? We look at the rise of Amazon Connect, Zoom, and the disruptive "CX is Dead" narrative from Talkdesk.The Hybrid Reality: Why on-prem and hybrid solutions from Mitel and WebEx are seeing a surprising resurgence.Our 2026 Resolution for Vendors: It's time to stop talking about features and start showing the "Where are they now?" customer success stories.Table of Contents: 0:00 - Introduction & 2025 Reflections 1:15 - AI: From Copilot to Coworker 2:45 - The Interoperability Challenge & Agentic AI 4:30 - Why WFM is the "Main Stage" of 2025 7:15 - CCaaS Market Shifts: Amazon vs. Zoom vs. Talkdesk 10:00 - The Case for On-Prem & Hybrid Clouds 11:30 - Predictions for 2026: Show Up or Shut UpConnect with us: Juanita Coley: https://solidrockco.net/Zeus Kerravala: https://zkresearch.com/#CustomerExperience #CX #AI #ContactCenter #WFM #GenerativeAI #TechTrends2026 #CCaaS

2025 Zkast #202 -The Big Shift: 2025 CX Year in Review & 2026 Predictions with Juanita Coley

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2025 Zkast #202 -The Big Shift: 2025 CX Year in Review & 2026 Predictions with Juanita Coley

Zeus Kerravala 16.7K views December 18, 2025 12:42 pm

2025 ZKast #201 - Five9 hires its next CEO - Amit Mathradas - Emergency ZKast with Liz Miller

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2025 ZKast #201 - Five9 hires its next CEO - Amit Mathradas - Emergency ZKast with Liz Miller

Zeus Kerravala 21K views December 17, 2025 2:42 pm

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Real-Time, Recorded

The Heard is a weekly talk/chat format where Dave Michels and Zeus Kerravala discuss current topics in enterprise communications.

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Dave and Zeus discuss NICE Interactions and Five9.

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RealTime Recorded: CCaaS June

Real-Time, Recorded June 28, 2024 9:57 pm

RealTime Recorded: CCaaS June

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RealTime Recorded: CCaaS June

Real-Time, Recorded 18 views June 28, 2024 9:57 pm

Dave and Zeus provide updates on 5 recent events: #MWC24, #8x8AnalystSummit, #RingCentralAnalystSummit, #HPAmplify, #Five9AnalystSummit.00:00 Intro00:55 MWC4:55 RingCentral Summit7:40 8x8 Summit13:25 HP Amplify.18:44 Five9 Analyst Summit25:25 EC24 Upcoming27:55 NVidia and AI

Real TIme Recorded Q124 Events

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Real TIme Recorded Q124 Events

Real-Time, Recorded 2.1K views March 19, 2024 6:14 am

Dave and Zeus discuss recent earnings reports in enterprise comms.

Real-Time, Recorded Earnings Reports

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Real-Time, Recorded Earnings Reports

Real-Time, Recorded 41 views February 24, 2024 1:57 am

Real-Time, Recorded - AI

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Real-Time, Recorded - AI

Real-Time, Recorded 131 views January 3, 2024 10:34 pm

Real-Time, Recorded! Zoomtopia 2023

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Real-Time, Recorded! Zoomtopia 2023

Real-Time, Recorded 50 views October 4, 2023 9:42 pm

Dave and Zeus discuss the Zoom Analyst event #ZoomPerspective23.

Real-Time, Recorded Zoom Perspectives 23

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Real-Time, Recorded Zoom Perspectives 23

Real-Time, Recorded 26 views August 8, 2023 5:02 am

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ZKast

2025 ZKast #206 - Networking Trends in 2026: AI, Wi-Fi 7, and the Vendor Rapid Fire | Bob and Zeus

Real-Time, Recorded

RealTime Recorded: CCaaS June