Kathy Gibson reports – The AI race is on – and organisations need to ask whether they are ready.
This is the question posed by Smangele Nkosi, GM of Cisco Southern Africa, speaking to delegates at Cisco Connect Southern Africa 2025 in Kyalami.
“The digital landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace, driving by one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes: AI,” she says.
It’s not just a buzzword, she adds, but a fundamental shift in how business operate, and how economies act.
Every organisation and individual is touched by AI, Nkosi points out. “Are you ready for this race; are your organisations prepared to not only participate but to lead?”
From a South African perspective, the AI age presents an unparalleled opportunity, Nkosi says. “It is about investing in in the future of our people, our economy and our potential.”
David Meads, senior vice-president of Cisco Middle East, Africa, Türkiye, Romania and CIS countries, points out that the digital landscape has been reimagined by AI.
“It is changing how, we live, work, play and learn, And it is changing how businesses think.”
He says organisations around the world are looking to three top priorities: AI-ready infrastructure, future-proofed workplaces; and digital resilience.
When it comes to AI-ready infrastructure, he points out that current networks are not designed to cope with the proliferation of AI.
When we get to agentic AI, which Meads believes will soon proliferate, networks will battle to cope with this type of traffic.
Normal network traffic consists of peaks and troughs, with the system is designed to cope with. But with agentic AI, the peak is constant – and networks are not currently designed to cope with this.
“CEOs have to ensure their infrastructures are ready to cope with this scenario.”
The second priority, ensuring the workplace is future-proof, is about helping users to work safely from anywhere.
“Work today is no longer happening in just one or two places – it can be literally anywhere,” Meads points out. ”The workplace has been redefined, and you need to empower employees to be productive wherever they work, But you can’t compromise on security when you do this; and they need to collaborate more than ever before.”
Security, without compromise, is simply not an option in this scenario, Meads adds.
Resilience is key to this, and it needs to encompass not just employees but also the entire infrastructure.
Today, digital resilience is is more important than ever, and has become a boardroom imperative.
“We need to ensure that CIOs have visibility into the entire infrastructure; from the data centre to the edge, and they are proactive in taking measure to ensure issues don’t impact the network.”
End-to-end visibility throughout the infrastructure is the only way to ensure this, Meads adds.
“Before we can really embrace the power of AI, we need to ensure we have the right foundations in place,” Meads concludes.