New Cisco and Omdia research shows 95% of enterprises say their existing AIOps tools can't keep up, and more than half have already moved to AgenticOps

News Summary

The alert math no longer works. At current volumes, the average organization would need roughly 100 IT specialists to clear its daily network alert backlog by hand.
Enterprises have moved past advisory AI. Over half now run agentic AI systems that act in production today.
Comfort with autonomy is already high. Four in five are comfortable granting agents a high or fully autonomous role, including nearly a quarter who would proceed with no human in the loop.
Trust is the condition, and it requires one place to see it all. Over two-thirds require detailed explainability for agent-driven actions, and 86% say a single integrated platform, not another point tool, is the most effective path forward.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) today announced the release of The Impact of Agentic AI on Network Operations, new research examining the state of network operations (NetOps), AI adoption, and attitudes toward AI autonomy and trust. Findings show that amid rising complexity, organizations are moving quickly toward agent-driven operations: AgenticOps. More than four of every five respondents expect to reach an AI-led operating model within 12 months, with more than three-quarters willing to grant agentic AI significant autonomy in NetOps, including nearly a quarter that are comfortable with fully autonomous operation and no human oversight.

Conducted independently by Omdia, the study surveyed 1,000 IT and network operations leaders at organizations with 500 or more employees. The findings indicate that organizations have moved from AI in an advisory role to AgenticOps for agent-powered network operations in which operators set direction and guardrails while AI agents sense, reason, and act across domains. It comes as NetOps teams face rising performance expectations and increasingly dynamic environments, with AI workloads adding new traffic patterns, performance requirements, and operational complexity.

"Agentic AI represents a fundamental paradigm shift: moving from running operations to orchestrating intent," said Joe Vaccaro, SVP/GM, Network Platform & Assurance at Cisco. "Agentic AI for NetOps requires trust built on visibility into every decision, explainable context behind every recommendation, and guardrails that ensure deterministic outcomes. Organizations that master this balance will keep operators firmly in command while enabling agentic systems that act with confidence, validate outcomes, and continuously prove operational trust."

Key Takeaways from The Impact of Agentic AI on Network Operations Report

The findings show that agent-driven AI has taken on operational responsibility in NetOps. This shift is occurring as the average organization generates about 4,100 monitoring alerts and events each day; more than half of them are network related. At this volume, manually clearing the daily network-alert backlog would require roughly 100 IT specialists. Organizations also report that nearly half of network alerts are closed without investigation, and an almost identical number of respondents report investigation time is spent pursuing false positives. As adoption advances, requirements for built-in trust are shaping how organizations implement and scale AI.

Operational complexity is placing pressure on traditional NetOps models. Organizations report managing high alert volumes, continuous change, fragmented tooling, and issues that span multiple domains. Against this backdrop, a vast majority (95%) say their existing, non-agentic AIOps tools fall short in one or more significant areas.
- 92% report that performance issues commonly span multiple domains, requiring correlation across ten or more tools for resolution.
- 57% say their current change processes can't match the speed required today.
AI adoption creates new demands on the network. That operational complexity is compounded as AI adoption grows and agents operate at software speed, generating unpredictable traffic patterns and greater data exchange.
- AI traffic is on a trajectory to double every six months, according to a Cisco analysis of aggregated direct-to-AI network telemetry.
- When traffic generated by agentic AI is included, Cisco testing found that tasks performed by agents can generate up to 450% more total network traffic.
Organizations are turning to an agent-driven network. Many organizations are allowing AI agents to take on more responsibility in NetOps, including making production changes such as rerouting traffic, adjusting wireless parameters, isolating suspicious endpoints, and resolving incidents end to end without prior human approval.
- 75% have already deployed AI for NetOps.
- 51% run agentic AI that acts in production today.
- 80% are comfortable granting AI a high or fully autonomous role in NetOps, including 24% who are comfortable with AI acting with no human oversight.
- 82% are comfortable allowing AI to make at least some production network changes without prior human approval.
- 84% expect an AI-led operating model within twelve months.
Organizations will scale agentic AI on the condition of visibility and trust. Organizations are open to greater agent-driven operations in NetOps, but their willingness to scale it depends on transparency, visibility, and controls.
- 86% say a single integrated platform is the most effective path forward.
- 69% require detailed explainability for agent-driven actions.
- 36% say full observability, including detailed tracing, summarized rationale, and post-action audits, is the minimum acceptable standard.

"The striking takeaway is not simply that AI adoption in NetOps is growing, but how quickly organizations are preparing for AI-led operations," said Jim Frey, Chief Analyst, Network and IT Operations, from Omdia. "The findings point to a broader shift from the advisory model of AIOps to agent-powered operations, AgenticOps, that can take action. As that shift accelerates, integrated visibility, strong governance, and measurable outcomes will be critical to expanding autonomy while maintaining operational control."

"Our team isn't growing, but complexity keeps increasing with significant momentum," said Mark Rodrigue, Senior Network Engineer at Room & Board. "Deep reasoning in the Cisco AI Assistant is one example of AgenticOps for us. Questions that used to mean a manual hunt-and-click exercise across dashboards and multiple data sources now come back in minutes, with the executive summary first and the supporting evidence underneath. That's a force multiplier! It shows its work, so I can follow the logic and see the full evidence chain behind every recommendation. That's the trust it takes to deploy agents at scale."

Background

The Impact of Agentic AI on Network Operations report is based on data from an independent global survey of 1,000 IT and network operations leaders, conducted by Omdia.
Survey respondents were decision-makers at organizations with 500 or more employees across North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Additional Resources

Download The Impact of Agentic AI on Network Operations report
Blog: NetOps is already deploying agentic autonomy – trust will decide how far it goes

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SOURCE Cisco Systems, Inc.