For years, cybersecurity has been about defending systems that respond. Firewalls filtered traffic. Identity tools verified users. Detection platforms flagged anomalies after something suspicious happened.
But at Cisco Live EMEA in Amsterdam, the networking giant quietly acknowledged a more uncomfortable reality: the systems we now need to protect no longer just respond — they act.
With enterprises rapidly deploying agentic AI , autonomous systems capable of initiating tasks, chaining decisions, and executing workflows , Cisco announced a sweeping evolution of its security portfolio designed to defend AI not as software, but as an operational actor inside the enterprise.
This moment matters more than the product announcements suggest. It marks the point where cybersecurity stops treating AI as a tool and starts treating it as a workforce — one that can be manipulated, poisoned, or socially engineered at machine speed.
From Chatbots to Corporate Actors
The first wave of enterprise AI was relatively benign. Models answered questions, summarized documents, or assisted customer service agents. Security concerns existed , data leakage, prompt injection, hallucinations , but the blast radius was limited.
Agentic AI changes the equation entirely.
These systems:
- Execute multi-step workflows
- Interact with APIs, databases, and SaaS platforms
- Make decisions without human approval
- Learn continuously from new data
In effect, they behave less like software and more like junior employees with system access — except they operate 24/7 and at machine speed.
Cisco’s Amsterdam message was blunt: traditional cybersecurity controls are not designed for autonomous decision-making entities.
New Attack Surface No One Budgeted For
Agentic AI introduces entirely new threat vectors that conventional security architectures struggle to address:
1. Data Poisoning at Scale
If an AI agent learns from compromised or biased data, it doesn’t just fail , it internalizes the attack. Over time, poisoned inputs can reshape decision logic across financial approvals, procurement systems, or customer interactions.
2. Agent Manipulation
Unlike deterministic software, agentic AI can be persuaded. Attackers don’t need to breach systems; they can influence behavior through crafted inputs, corrupted signals, or adversarial context.
3. Privilege Drift
As AI agents accumulate access to systems over time, permissions expand. Without continuous governance, they quietly become over-privileged insiders, the most dangerous role in cybersecurity.
4. Autonomous Error Propagation
When an AI agent makes a bad decision, it doesn’t stop at one mistake. It triggers downstream actions across interconnected systems, amplifying damage before humans even notice.
Cisco’s reframing is critical: AI is no longer just something you secure, it is something that must be governed.
Cisco’s Strategic Shift: Security for Behavior, Not Just Access
At Cisco Live EMEA, the company outlined a philosophy change that goes beyond incremental upgrades.
Instead of asking:
“Is this user authorized?”
Cisco’s updated security posture asks:
“Is this AI behaving as expected, right now?”
This distinction is subtle but profound.
Cisco’s evolved approach emphasizes:
- Behavioral baselining for AI agents
- Continuous verification of AI actions, not just identities
- Context-aware policy enforcement across AI workflows
- Protection against training-data corruption and inference-time manipulation
In short, Cisco is positioning security not as a gatekeeper, but as a real-time supervisor of autonomous systems.
Networking Companies Suddenly Care About AI Ethics
Cisco’s move is not happening in isolation. It reflects a broader industry realization: agentic AI collapses the boundary between IT systems and organizational decision-making.
When AI:
- Approves invoices
- Routes customer complaints
- Allocates cloud resources
- Manages supply chains
…security failures become business failures, not technical ones.
This is why network and infrastructure companies, not just AI lab, are stepping into governance territory. The network is where AI decisions:
- Move
- Interact
- Propagate
Control the network, and you gain leverage over AI behavior itself.
The Compliance Clock Is Ticking
Cisco’s timing is no accident.
By 2026:
- The EU AI Act begins enforcement for high-risk systems
- Enterprises face stricter accountability for automated decision-making
- Regulators demand explainability, audit trails, and human oversight
Agentic AI without embedded security and governance is not just risky, it is legally untenable.
Cisco’s Amsterdam announcements can be read as a preemptive move to help enterprises:
- Demonstrate control
- Prove intent
- Reduce regulatory exposure
In this sense, security is becoming AI compliance infrastructure.
Human Cost of Ignoring Agentic Risk
There’s a temptation in tech to frame AI security as abstract or futuristic. It isn’t.
Consider real-world consequences:
- An AI procurement agent manipulated into favoring fraudulent vendors
- A financial AI approving loans based on poisoned risk models
- A customer-service agent autonomously escalating conflicts instead of resolving them
In each case, blame doesn’t land on the model, it lands on the organization that deployed it without guardrails.
Cisco’s message is clear: If AI acts on your behalf, you are responsible for its behavior.
Security Market
Cisco’s repositioning signals a broader market realignment.
The next generation of cybersecurity will not be defined by:
- Faster threat detection
- Bigger firewalls
- More alerts
It will be defined by:
- Intent monitoring
- Decision validation
- Autonomy control
- AI accountability frameworks
Security vendors that fail to adapt will be protecting systems that no longer exist.
A Turning Point, Not a Product Launch
Cisco Live EMEA will be remembered less for individual announcements and more for what it acknowledged publicly: agentic AI has crossed from experimental novelty into operational reality.
Once AI systems:
- Initiate actions
- Control resources
- Influence outcomes
…security stops being a technical discipline and becomes a governance function.
This is the real shift Cisco put on the table in Amsterdam.
Bottom Line
Agentic AI is not dangerous because it is intelligent.
It is dangerous because it is trusted.
Cisco’s evolving security strategy recognizes that trust must be:
- Continuously earned
- Constantly verified
- Technically enforced
In the age of autonomous AI coworkers, cybersecurity’s job is no longer just to keep attackers out, it is to make sure the machines we let in do not quietly become liabilities.
That realization marks the true beginning of the agentic era.
