Cisco exec says adopting AI is like ‘surgery without the drugs’ Integrating AI into a global company like Cisco has been a challenging process, described by its chief customer experience officer as ‘surgery without the drugs.’ Initial attempts to use generative AI for customer support case summaries proved ineffective, leading to the realization that the core issue was inefficient routing, not inefficient handoffs. Cisco has since redesigned its workflow using intelligent routing, significantly improving the accuracy of case assignment.

• Cisco’s chief customer experience officer, Liz Centoni, described AI integration as ‘surgery without the drugs,’ indicating a painful but necessary process.
• The company initially used generative AI for customer support case summaries, but this only ‘annoyed customers faster’ by improving handoffs without solving the root problem of reaching the right engineer.
• Cisco redesigned its customer support workflow with ‘intelligent routing,’ resulting in nearly 88% of 1.5 million annual cases being routed to the correct engineer on the first attempt.
• Centoni suggests integrating AI into repeatable workflows with over 90% accuracy and launching new tools like Cisco IQ to address customer pain points.
• The success of AI projects is measured not just by efficiency but also by their ability to stop work, grow revenue, expand margins, deepen customer trust, or enable future development. Continue reading https://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-ai-adoption-customer-service-2026-5