AI Agents in the Workplace: What Cisco Learned at 90,000
AI agents in the workplace are here. Cisco gave 90,000 employees one. Bob Cicero on what that means for the office, your team, and the flexible workforce
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Bob Cicero, Global Director of Workplace Experience at Cisco, shares what happens to the office when every employee also manages AI agents, from more than two decades at Cisco.
AI Agents in the Workplace: The Big Idea
AI agents in the workplace stopped being a pilot at Cisco in August. The company gave 90,000 employees an agent. Bob Cicero uses his to run research and write his daily digest.
He doesn't expect it to stay at one. He expects each person to run ten. That changes who a manager is. In Bob's words, everyone needs to be a leader now, because everyone will manage digital workers.
The bigger shift is where those agents live. They talk to people. They talk to each other. And Bob says they have to work with the building too.
"So at Cisco, we just rolled out in August: 90,000 employees have agents. So I have an agent, think about it as my digital worker." - Bob Cicero
A Workplace That Senses, Reasons, and Acts
Bob came up through sales and electrical engineering, and he has always loved construction and architecture. His goal is a workplace with no friction, where technology disappears.
Friction is everywhere today. You can't find the room. The room isn't ready. The meeting takes ten minutes to start, eight times a day. That's 80 minutes gone.
His picture of the near future: the meeting before yours hits a wireless problem. Agents diagnose it and start fixing it. They see it won't be ready in time, so they reroute you to a room that fits your needs and put a blue dot on your phone. You walk in and don't miss a beat.
"Great engineering disappears, right? You don't see it, you experience." - Bob Cicero
The Future of the Office: Built for Human Moments
Bob sees two modes of work: focus work and collaboration. Agents will take most of the focus work. What's left is the human part: solving problems, brainstorming, learning, and making decisions together.
So the office should be designed for those moments, not for rows of desks. And it should work the same for everyone who walks in, whether they're an employee, a contractor, a fractional leader, or a guest.
"Shouldn't matter if I'm a freelancer, shouldn't matter if I'm a guest, right? The access to the technology should all be the same." - Bob Cicero
Workplace Experience: The Office Has to Earn the Commute
Cisco did not mandate a return to the office after the pandemic, and it still doesn't. The goal is a place people want to go.
That meant thinking past technology to noise, light, and texture. Cisco's newest London office was designed with neurodiversity in mind. It includes quiet reset rooms with no technology at all, for people coming off a stressful commute.
The measure is simple. Are people coming back, again and again? Cisco tracks that with building standards, experience benchmarks, and its own space data.
The Flexible Workforce Needs the Same Front Door
Bob's team is building one experience for a blended team inside Cisco's walls. People, agents, and contractors all get the same access, and the friction disappears.
The same blend is happening on the sourcing side. Teams now pull in agencies, freelancers, managed services, and AI-powered solutions. But finding the right one still runs on referrals, spreadsheets, and months of RFPs.
That's the problem Human Cloud solves. Companies get a shortlist of the best flexible talent solutions for their exact need, for free. They stay in control of who contacts them, and they can automate the RFP. Cisco is removing friction from the room. Human Cloud removes it from finding who should be in it.
Your First 90 Days
Bob's advice for leaders who want to start now:
- Find the data you already have. Wireless and device data often sits in IT and shows how space is really used. Build a bridge to IT.
- Bring the right people in up front. Design and construction often treat technology as an afterthought. Cisco started fresh in October 2019 and set aside everything it had done before.
- Organize around people. At Cisco, real estate reports to HR.
"Our real estate team works for HR because space and place is about the people." - Bob Cicero
The Bottom Line
AI agents in the workplace are moving faster than most office plans. When digital workers take the focus work, the office becomes the place for human connection, and it has to earn that visit.
The workforce plan and the workplace plan are becoming one plan. The companies that win will design both around people, whoever those people work for.
About Bob Cicero
Bob Cicero is Global Director of Workplace Experience at Cisco. An electrical engineer by training, he has spent two decades at Cisco designing workplaces where people, space, and technology work together.
Listen to the full episode: Human Cloud Podcast on Spotify
Presented by Safeguard Global. The employer of record that lets you hire, pay, and manage teams in 187 countries without the risk. Meet Safeguard Global on Human Cloud.
This article was adapted from the Human Cloud Podcast. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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