Cisco launches Cloud Control, a unified, AI-powered platform to manage and defend infrastructure across autonomous networks, data center and campus networking, security against AI-accelerated threats, multicloud connectivity, and resilience services.

The platform integrates a single login and data layer for networking, security, observability, and collaboration, enabling custom apps and agents built with natural language, with a growing ecosystem that includes Wiz and major cloud and workflow partners.

New security and resilience features include expanded Live Protect runtime protection, Hybrid Mesh Firewall, quantum-safe secure boot, Quantum Ready Assessments, and a Quantum Resilience Framework, with broader availability targeted for mid-2026 and full core portfolio coverage by year end.

An illustrative AI Canvas example shows cross-domain incident resolution cut from four hours to about forty minutes for a financial services customer, highlighting efficiency gains.

Cloud Control is in controlled US availability with plans for a global rollout.

Some capabilities may be in development or offered on a when-and-if available basis.

Adaptive red teaming lets users set custom objectives and run multi-stage attack simulations to test vulnerabilities.

Policy Studio enables adaptive guardrails using natural-language threat descriptions and policy documents, demonstrated with a financial services use case to prevent prescriptive investment advice.

Guardrails and monitoring improve agent trust by detecting issues, identifying causes, and ensuring accurate and dependable responses and user experience.

The rollout comes amid broader AI-driven security challenges, with context from Google’s Android security update underscoring rising threat pace.

Quarters show growing contributions from Webex, observability, and security, with double-digit security and observability growth supporting a shift toward software and cloud-delivered services.

Benefits for customers include immediate AI-powered troubleshooting for single-domain users and cross-domain intelligence without extra licenses for multi-domain setups, plus a governed path to AI-driven infrastructure for IT leaders.