AI is driving business evolution in Australia. From predictive maintenance to intelligent automation and enhanced customer experiences, AI workloads are redefining how organisations operate and compete.
Yet, as adoption accelerates, the pressure on network infrastructure is intensifying. Ecosystm research shows that:
- 67% of organisations are already on their AI journey
- But only 18% have networks capable of delivering the high performance, low latency, and reliability needed for advanced AI workloads.
The gap between AI ambition and network readiness is fast becoming a critical barrier. AI workloads require near-instant data exchange across cloud, edge, and data centre environments – all secured by zero-trust principles. Yet most networks, built for predictable traffic and centralised control, weren’t designed for this speed or complexity. The result: latency, fragmentation, and new risks that quietly erode AI’s potential value.
Join your peers for an exclusive Leaders Roundtable to explore how to build network foundations that keep pace with AI-driven innovation. Senior technology leaders will share lessons learned and strategies to make the network an enabler and not the bottleneck of AI progress.
What you’ll gain from the discussion:
- Architecting for AI Demand. Scale networks to support LLMs, real-time analytics, and high-volume machine-to-machine traffic.
- Embedding Security and Resilience. Apply zero-trust, SASE, and continuous monitoring to counter AI-accelerated threats.
- Aligning Cloud, Edge, and Hybrid Environments. Enhance agility, control costs, and ensure performance.
- Driving Operational Excellence through Automation. Use AI-driven observability and automation to simplify operations, improve uptime, and accelerate innovation.
Whether you’ll be attending Cisco Live! or not, you’ll leave with actionable insights and peer-tested strategies to turn your network into a catalyst for secure, scalable, and cost-efficient AI-driven growth.
NEC
NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics company headquartered in Tokyo. It provides a wide range of products and services, including IT and network solutions, AI, biometrics, cloud services, and telecommunications equipment, to customers in various industries, including government, finance, and logistics. The company has a global presence and has focused on creating “Solutions for Society,” aiming to provide social value in safety, security, efficiency, and equality.
CISCO
Cisco is an American multinational technology corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment, and other high-tech services. Founded in 1984, the company became a key player in the development of the internet by pioneering the use of multiprotocol routers to connect different computer networks. Today, Cisco offers a wide range of solutions encompassing cybersecurity, collaboration tools like Webex, and AI-powered infrastructure to help businesses connect, secure, and automate their operations.
Tim Sheedy
Vice President Research, Ecosystm
Yang Liu
Portfolio Manager – Hybrid IT, NEC
Paul Suhr
Regional Manager – Networking, Cisco
Register for this Event
This event has already concluded.
Please see below some images and key takeaways.
Key takeaways include:
➤ Trust and AI EQ are critical. Confidence in AI outcomes, the data it consumes, and the decisions behind them remains low. Organisations are boosting governance and spreading AI literacy across teams, similar to how cloud adoption accelerated with broad training.
➤ Hybrid AI is the new normal. Not every workload belongs in the public cloud. Many are running AI on-prem, at the edge, or in co-location sites. AI will increasingly operate across hybrid clouds, mirroring cloud hosting patterns.
➤ AI is reshaping network demand. Agentic AI drives bigger, more frequent data spikes as it moves between systems, cloud engines, and applications. Organisations are proactively upgrading network capacity to handle the surge.
➤ Security must be built in. Agentic AI expands the threat surface across SaaS, AI platforms, data centres, desktops, and edge devices. “Build then secure” won’t work; zero-trust and continuous data protection are essential.
➤ Cost pressures shape adoption. Limited budgets for AI tokens push organisations toward smaller models, edge inference, and FinOps strategies. Immediate productivity gains may be modest, but improved employee and customer experiences often justify investment.