Cisco Webex Evolves: Simplifying Work, Empowering IT, Enhancing CXCisco Webex Evolves: Simplifying Work, Empowering IT, Enhancing CX
The news from Cisco Live centered around making everyday work more streamlined, even as working environments become more complex.
June 23, 2025
Key Takeaways for Webex from Cisco Live 2025
Cisco’s global user event, Cisco Live, was held recently in San Diego. The event is used for the enterprise IT giant to show off the latest and greatest innovations. While much of the payload was comprised of networking and security technology, Webex made a strong showing as well.
The vision for the collaboration group at Cisco is a concept called, “Distance Zero,” which is an architectural approach that aims to remove the existing barriers between people, devices, applications and data – regardless of location. During his collaboration keynote, SVP and GM of Collaboration, Snorre Kjesbu discussed the concept. He explained that a user’s experience should have the same level of access, security and experience whether they are at home, in the office or anywhere in between.
When it comes to Webex, Cisco is putting much of its focus on three key areas: improving the customer experience (CX), simplifying workplace technology, and giving IT teams more control. Here’s a closer look at how each of these focus areas came through at Cisco Live.
Webex is Simplifying the Workplace
Cisco is rethinking what the modern workplace should look like, with less setup and better support for how people work. It’s not about adding more tools but making the ones organizations already use smarter and easier to manage.
Take meeting rooms: The company introduced a new Room Vision PTZ camera that handles video and speaker tracking through a single Ethernet cable. It pairs with ceiling mics like Cisco’s Ceiling Microphone Pro and desk devices for a more integrated room setup—something IT teams can roll out without extra complexity. This type of setup already exists at organizations like a large healthcare company, which is using Cisco’s video gear to support remote training for clinical teams.
Historically, room equipment has been a pain to set up and required specialized AV integrators, room re-design and re-cabling. And even with all the upfront work, the systems often didn’t live up to the promise. Ceiling Microphone Pro and the new camera are examples of Cisco living up to the promise of making solutions easier to use.
Cisco is also integrating with third parties to reduce day-to-day friction. Based on conversations with IT leaders, I estimate that about 40% of a worker’s day is spent “managing work” versus being productive. Much of that time is spent is known as the “switching task” from toggling between the various apps. Webex now connects with tools like Jira and AgentForce, so users can escalate an issue or launch a meeting without jumping between platforms.
For the IT pro, devices can be rolled out faster with zero-touch provisioning. Cisco endpoints are preconfigured when shipped and ready to go making them as close to plug and play as possible. This means there’s no need to have someone on-site to set them up and everything is managed in one place through Webex Control Hub.
“This isn’t just about integrations, it’s about making work more intuitive, seamless, and connected. But with these types of exceptional meeting experiences, it starts with intelligent tools that work seamlessly in the background. We need to make sure that it’s as simple and easy as possible to deploy,” explained Kjesbu. “Because we combine the capabilities in the devices with our control and manageability software, you get a much better experience, much faster rollout, you cut costs and reduce complexity.”
For customer-facing teams, Cisco is starting to roll out new Webex tools that take some of the pressure off the front line. Customer Assist, AI Receptionist, and text queues are examples of tools that streamline incoming calls and messages. The goal isn’t to replace people, but to automate repetitive tasks. In settings like healthcare or retail, where response times are vital, such tools can reduce delays and keep things moving.
Webex is Giving IT Teams More Control
Cisco is investing in tools that make things easier for IT teams, specifically when it comes to managing Webex via Control Hub across different environments: cloud, on-prem, or somewhere in between. Historically, management tools have not been the calling card for Cisco but the company nailed it with Control Hub. Many of its large resellers, such as World Wide Technology, C1 and Logicalis have raved about the quality of the tool. Customers have told me that Control Hub does a better job of managing Teams rooms than Microsoft’s own tools.
New features in Control Hub let admins monitor AI usage, track adoption trends, and generate reports in plain language. With a recent Meraki integration, Control Hub gives IT teams better visibility into how network performance affects meetings and calls. This helps troubleshoot issues without having to move between separate systems.
Cisco is also giving IT teams more flexibility in how they manage access and permissions. With the latest role-based access control (RBAC) update in Webex, admins can group resources, such as rooms, devices, or office locations, and assign access based on how their teams are organized. The update provides more control over who can make changes, without having to manage every setting individually.
Some organizations still need to keep part or all of their collaboration systems on-prem for regulatory reasons or internal policy. Therefore, Cisco continues to support hybrid deployments where organizations can manage their own encryption keys for sensitive data, store meeting recordings locally, or have built-in backup systems. These options are particularly important in highly regulated sectors like healthcare, government, and finance.
Finally, Cisco is incorporating more energy controls into Webex to help organizations reduce power usage across phones and other collaboration devices. For instance, with SmartPower integration between Catalyst switches and Webex Desk Phones, organizations can automatically scale back power when devices are not being used in the evenings, weekends, or holidays.
Nearly two-thirds of global executives now include energy efficiency in their workplace planning, and Cisco is starting to reflect that in Webex.
Webex is Making CX Smarter, More Personal
AI is central to how Webex supports customer experience (CX) with tools like AI Agent and AI Assistant. Now generally available, the tools are designed to make customer support interactions feel less fragmented and more personal.
As an example, with AI Agent, organizations can create intelligent virtual agents that handle customer inquiries. To help agents provide better service, AI Assistant summarizes conversations and generates real-time transcriptions, so customers don’t have to repeat themselves when transitioning between voice and digital channels. These tools can be customized for specific industries like finance, education, and healthcare.
On a pre-briefing, Cisco provided examples of customers using the product and highlighted the ROI gained. An equipment rental company and bank were two customers that saw a noticeable impact to CX. After deploying AI Agent, the rental organization saw an 85 percent drop in help desk escalations, while the financial organization reduced average handling time by 20 percent. Cisco also experienced a rise in call containment rates at its merchandise store after switching from a scripted agent to a virtual one.
Webex ties AI directly into its CPaaS, call routing, and even third-party platforms like Epic, one of the most widely used electronic health record (EHR) systems in healthcare. That level of integration means support teams can go beyond surface-level automation and build end-to-end workflows. By connecting AI agents, customer data, and communication channels on a single platform, Webex gives organizations a consistent experience.
While there are many use cases for AI across businesses today, CX has become the “low hanging fruit” as it lowers costs while improving experience. For most organizations, keeping agent staffing levels where they need to be is a challenge. AI can offload much of boring stuff, mundane calls, note taking, etc., which improves agent experience and keeps costs under control.
One important note for the agents. These capabilities aren’t only for the cloud. Cisco supports on-prem deployments, with release 15 of its Contact Center Enterprise now available. Over the past year there has been a noticeable picking in interest in on-prem and private cloud deployments driven by privacy and global macro issues. Cisco is continuing to invest in the on-prem products, which are used by many of its larger, global clients.
Customers are the big winner with Cisco’s revamped collaboration strategy. The company has always made good to great products, but they weren’t always the easiest to use or to manage. Historically, this has caused users to be frustrated which opened the door for competitors to step in with products that were more intuitive. With AI, there is great interest from workers, but they will shy away from solutions that look clunky or complicated and Cisco has built all its products with “easy” in mind.
Also, Cisco has embraced the concept of open and has seamless interoperability with historical rivals such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. This has been a big shift in strategy for Cisco as its typically gone after the whole collaboration pie but history has shown when product are interoperable it creates a bigger pie for all.
For Cisco, the collaboration business saw solid growth in Q3, with overall revenue up 4 percent year-over-year (YoY) driven by interest in Webex cloud software and video enabled devices. Organizations are increasingly spending over $1M annually on Webex -- proof that the platform is landing with enterprise buyers. Hardware is a surprisingly bright spot with video conferencing devices growing significantly and on the software side, Cisco also saw growth in Webex Suite and Calling.
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