On this article, we examined engineers’ expectations concerning AI brokers for networking and safety, in addition to the provision of business and open-source AI brokers or options.
What Is an AI Agent?
An AI agent is an autonomous software program system that independently perceives, causes, and acts to realize particular objectives. In contrast to conventional software program that follows fastened directions, brokers constantly monitor their surroundings, make dynamic selections based mostly on accessible data, and adapt their methods via studying and expertise. Fashionable AI brokers make the most of instruments reminiscent of internet search, APIs, code execution, and file manipulation to work together with exterior techniques, enabling them to carry out advanced duties—from community monitoring and troubleshooting to safety evaluation and menace response.
Design and Structure
On the design and structure stage, AI agent creators ought to determine the next:
- Select the AI framework.
- Select associated AI mannequin(s).
- Design AI agent instruments.
- Collect and check details about databases, APIs, and MCP servers which are deliberate for use.
Fashions for AI Brokers
The LLM is a central controller, or “mind,” for brokers. It’s an important ingredient for the brokers. So, which mannequin must you select? One of many methods to tell apart between the fashions is by utilizing benchmarks. Benchmarks in AI are standardized assessments designed to measure and examine the talents of various fashions on particular duties or a set of duties.
Most of the hottest benchmarks usually chosen for mannequin comparability don’t embody networking- or security-related questions.
One of many closest networking benchmarks that we’ve discovered is Community Operational Information (NOK) benchmarking for LLMs (Dec 15, 2023). For safety, there may be the CTIBench benchmark. You can too discover Basis-Sec-8B, a mannequin developed by Basis AI at Cisco. Basis-Sec-8B is an open-weight language mannequin specialised for cybersecurity purposes.
There are considering fashions that ideally match the necessities for brokers.
AI Reasoning and Considering Fashions
- Gemini 2.5 Professional (Deep Suppose).
- GPT-5 Considering.
- Claude Sonnet 4.0 Considering.
- Claude Opus 4.1 Considering.
- Qwen3-235B-A22B-Considering.
AI Brokers: Expectations
Listed here are the outcomes of surveys concerning “Which AI brokers would you most wish to discover on Cisco DevNet Code Change?”:
AI Brokers on Cisco DevNet Code Change: Survey Outcomes (September 2025).
Mixed survey outcomes (100 whole votes):
- Configuration automation: 37% — The best choice among the many DevNet neighborhood, indicating sturdy demand for AI brokers that may automate community configuration duties and infrastructure administration.
- Community monitoring brokers: 32% — Shut second precedence, displaying engineers need AI-powered instruments for community visibility, efficiency monitoring, and operational insights.
- Risk and vulnerability brokers: 22% — Important curiosity in AI brokers targeted on safety monitoring, menace detection, and vulnerability evaluation capabilities.
- Code technology brokers: 9% — Lowest precedence, suggesting engineers are much less eager about AI instruments for writing code in comparison with operational automation.
The mixed outcomes from Cisco DevNet, LinkedIn, and X/Twitter surveys display a transparent desire for operational AI brokers over development-focused instruments. With almost 70% of votes going to configuration automation and community monitoring, the Cisco technical neighborhood prioritizes AI brokers that clear up real-world infrastructure challenges fairly than code technology utilities. Twenty-two % of votes went to AI brokers targeted on safety.
Listed here are duties that Community and Infrastructure engineers, SREs, and DevOps groups wish to make the most of an AI agent for inside their workflows:
Common outcomes of the offline surveys at Cisco DevNet Share Your Expertise Zone (2024–2025).
AI Brokers for Networking and Safety: Open-Supply and Business
There are open-source AI brokers for networking that allow you to handle and troubleshoot community gadgets by way of pure language, mechanically changing requests into secure CLI actions or gRPC/REST API calls. There are additionally brokers that automate advanced diagnostics and troubleshooting finish to finish. These brokers validate intent, plan per-device investigations, execute instructions throughout a number of gadgets, assess findings, and generate clear, memory-augmented experiences.
We in Cisco DevNet collect open-source networking and safety AI brokers right here: https://developer.cisco.com/codeexchange/search/?q=ai+agent. Quickly, it is possible for you to to discover a separate part for MCP servers at DevNet Code Change.
And what can business corporations provide?
Cisco has a Cisco AI Assistant that may work with varied merchandise and assist analyze insurance policies, mechanically generate experiences, and ship notifications, amongst different duties. Cisco AI Assistant is conscious of the newest documentation and guides associated to the merchandise. Cisco can also be growing AI Canvas, the primary generative UI that unifies real-time telemetry, AI insights, and crew collaboration throughout all IT domains in a single clever workspace.
Here’s a listing of business corporations that develop AI brokers as merchandise: AI Community Engineers from Nanites AI, DevAI, Copilot for Community Automation by Selector AI, and Aviz AI Brokers.
Many business corporations declare to supply multivendor help. The AI brokers developed by business corporations can carry out on a regular basis duties, reminiscent of mechanically verifying end-to-end pings, checking community compliance, producing audit experiences on demand, validating firewall guidelines, and offering Stage 1 help automation. In addition they provide superior capabilities, together with stock insights that immediately entry full community information (gadgets, OS variations, {hardware} SKUs, ASICs, MAC addresses, and transceivers), in addition to correlation and prediction for capability and efficiency planning.
AI Brokers: Safety Considerations
As fashions evolve, issues about accuracy and reliability lower over time; in the meantime, safety and compliance issues improve. That is linked to widespread media protection concerning mannequin jailbreaking, immediate injection, and mannequin poisoning.
AI brokers may cause points, present incorrect directions, or apply non-optimal configurations.
Attainable AI agent errors may be linked with the next:
- Incorrect agent ideas based mostly on data/errors obtained from providers via REST APIs/WebSockets/CLI.
- Hallucination.
- Selecting the unsuitable device.
Using associated AI safety instruments, guardrails, and choosing the suitable fashions may also help mitigate dangers.
On the identical time, AI brokers can present clever automated protection. Typically safety specialists want an assistant to assist react to incidents or collect and apply associated insurance policies and updates. Safety engineers typically lack adequate time to overview alerts, accumulate information from varied sources, take into account particular and historic context, and take acceptable motion.
Need extra AI content material? Try Cisco DevNet AI Hub: https://developer.cisco.com/web site/ai/