AI Agent and Copilot Podcast: Cisco Engineering Leader on AI’s Impact in Product Support

Welcome to this AI Agent & Copilot Podcast, where we analyze the opportunities, impact, and outcomes that are possible with AI.

In this episode, I speak with Nik Kale, a principal engineer with Cisco and the architect of an AI-powered system — called AI Support Fabric — that’s used in product support inside Cisco and by customers of the tech giant.

Highlights

AI Support Fabric Background (2:24)

AI Support Fabric powers in-product guidance, AI-assisted support, and human escalation workflows within Cisco products. Customers often navigate multiple tabs and portals to find answers, leading to a disconnected experience. AI Support Fabric aims to provide a more connected experience across the entire product ecosystem, moving from reactive to proactive support.

Implementation and Results of AE Support Fabric (4:50)

AI Support Fabric runs in Cisco security and enterprise environments. It has over 200,000 unique users and 15,000 unique customers engaging weekly. The system brings AI and human intelligence directly into the product, providing personalized and predictive support. The in-product layer ensures customers receive targeted remediation content and guidance, reducing noise. Examples include handling zero-day vulnerabilities by pushing targeted remediation content directly to affected customers.

Unified Data Foundation (9:49)

AI Support Fabric is built on a unified data foundation called Tron, which acts as a single source of truth; Tron ingests millions of customer interactions, categorizing them into actionable outcomes like defects or documentation issues. The Digital Intellectual Capital Ecosystem (DICE) distills knowledge from years of support operations into reusable content, enabling omni-channel delivery. The principle of “build once, deliver everywhere” ensures content is reusable across various customer interaction channels.

Layers of AI Support (12:34)

AI Support Fabric consists of three layers: proactive guidance, AI assistant, and human escalation. The proactive guidance layer uses the Cisco Digital Adoption Platform to surface relevant guidance at the moment of friction. The AI assistant is a multi-agent system that coordinates at machine speeds, acting like a task force for complex issues. The human escalation layer packages all relevant diagnostic information for human engineers to resolve complex issues.

Human Escalation and Safety in AI Systems (18:50)

Human escalation is especially important in security products. The human escalation layer treats escalation as a first-class feature, ensuring AI recommendations are validated and logged. The system reduces mean time to resolution by 15% to 20%, saving time and effort for both customers and engineers.

Customer Outcomes and ROI (21:38)

ROI is framed across three dimensions: resolution speed, knowledge leverage, and shift from reactive to proactive support. Resolution speed is improved by providing contextual health and reducing initial calls for information. Knowledge leverage multiplies the value of institutional support knowledge, making it available when needed. The shift from reactive to proactive support prevents issues before they become problems.

More Cisco and AI Insights:

• Cisco Secures MCP Servers With Multiple Scanning Engines
• Microsoft Taps AI To Expand Breadth, Depth of Security Investigations

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