Cisco Live: Hybrid work gets
new meaning

Five years after the Covid pandemic ushered in the era of hybrid work, the term has taken on new meaning: It no longer means home vs office, but human vs AI. Or rather, human with AI.

A major new Cisco study released this week at the Cisco Live 2025 conference in San Diego, California, reveals that “hybrid” has evolved from a location discussion to a collaboration model. This is already being reflected in how companies build workplaces, manage infrastructure, and rethink security, as artificial intelligence becomes a team member.

It is also reshaping how we think about the very nature of work. And it’s a shift that’s just beginning, according to the Cisco Global Hybrid Work Study 2025.

Cisco surveyed more than 16,000 employees and 1,500 employers globally and revealed a startling new reality: 60% of employers say hybrid work refers to collaboration between humans and AI, and is no longer only about splitting time between office and home. This also means that the workplace is not about presence anymore, but about process.

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That finding rewrites the entire workplace playbook, says Fran Katsoudas, Cisco’s chief people, policy and purpose officer.

“The workplace is going to have a fundamental augmentation of agents and robots and IoT devices,” she said in a panel discussion on the study during the conference. The shift, she said, was not merely a technological upgrade, but a human capability challenge: “I think the more that we can help people get started, the more confidence they will build. It’s a muscle. I think AI is a muscle that we have to build.”

Katsoudas told Business Times that the shift was becoming personal: “Something that I say all the time is that my new colleague is AI, and I need to work with my new teammate in order to get things done.

 “I think we are moving into a mode where there is so much agility and flexibility. We know that the way in which work is going to be getting done is going to be part human, part AI. That’s a new part of the workforce.”

During the panel, she described the opportunity for AI to clear the clutter: “We’re seeing this wonderful opportunity with AI to take out some of the noise, so that we can really focus on what matters. And I think the challenge for us is, how do we teach people the types of questions to ask? How do we give people a sense of confidence?”

As the pace of change accelerates, Katsoudas said, it became increasingly important to guide people through it.

“We have to be intentional. We have to be super thoughtful about the transitions that people are going to be making.

“If people don’t trust the system, they’re not going to use the system. We have to ensure our systems are transparent, explainable, and inclusive. That’s true for employees, and it’s true for AI as well.”

Anurag Dhingra, Cisco chief technology officer for collaboration, said that, in the context of the workplace study, AI’s real value lies in context-aware support.

“We talk about these new AI tools like summarisation and transcription. But the true power is when those tools work across platforms: when your note taker understands your meeting history, your working style, and can provide the context you need without you asking for it.”

He pointed to the reduction of invisible work as a breakthrough: “We have this incredible opportunity to eliminate the things that take up our time but don’t add value. That’s where AI makes a real difference: not in creating more work, but in reducing the invisible work that no one gets credit for.”

Christian Bigby, Cisco director of workplace experience, told the panel that physical environments were evolving alongside digital ones.

“What we’re doing with our own offices is creating space where the experience leads. We’re measuring occupancy, noise, air quality – but it’s not just for facilities. That data is powering decisions about how teams use space, when to come in, and how we can support flexibility without sacrificing culture.”

He described a design ethos aimed at seamless experience.

“If you walk into one of our new workspaces, you might not even notice the technology at first. But it’s there – embedded, ambient, and designed to get out of the way. That’s what hybrid work needs to feel like.”

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Asked if the findings and proposed strategies were relevant beyond the United States, Katsoudas pointed to Cisco’s Johannesburg office as a case in point.

“There’s so much about that centre that is all about energy savings and how we can be so thoughtful about our usage of energy. So, in some cases, we can take some of the infrastructure challenges and actually make them very compelling selling points for our customers as well.”

South Africa and other emerging markets also did not have to be left out of the global innovation conversation, she told Business Times after the panel discussion.

“I’ve always been a big believer of innovation at the edge. What that means is, around the globe, as we talk to customers, as we create offices, we can take some of the problem points, we can try to create solutions that address those and allow us to innovate for the entire landscape.”

Cisco’s “future-proof workplace” model – a core theme at Cisco Live 2025 –  was demonstrated through unified cloud dashboards that integrate Catalyst enterprise-grade networking hardware and Meraki device management, AI-powered “multiplayer infrastructure troubleshooting” interfaces, and predictive network intelligence systems that anticipate and resolve connectivity issues in real time.

The company is also building monitoring tools into its platforms to track AI usage, give employees visibility into how recommendations are made, and allow human override, ensuring that intelligent systems remain human-centric.

The Hybrid Work study showed that the workplace itself had regained its importance, revealing “a clear, global trend toward increased in-office work”, with the percentage of respondents with hybrid work arrangements decreasing from 62% in 2022 to 45% in 2025. Nearly three quarters (72%) of respondents’ organisations had mandates for working in the office and almost  half (46%) say their organisation’s current hybrid work policy requires more time in the office than the policy it had replaced.

“Notably, respondents report positive impacts from these changes, especially in the areas of productivity, innovation, culture, and employee engagement,” the study found. Nearly three-quarters of all respondents (73%) reported higher productivity under their new working arrangements, with an average self-reported increase of 19%.

However, the study found that 80% of employees want technology that helps them “work smarter, not longer.” And 66% of employers said they believed AI will be essential to achieving meaningful productivity gains over the next two years.

* Arthur Goldstuck is author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI”.