As AI reshapes job roles and automation redefines workflows, organizations are below stress to repeatedly construct, validate, and apply new expertise at scale. Most expertise pipelines merely can’t sustain: almost half of IT leaders already report {that a} lack of AI expertise is slowing progress.
At Be taught with Cisco, it’s our purpose to make IT expertise accessible to everybody: from college students and entry-level professionals to specialists with years of expertise. So it’s extraordinarily gratifying to see that IDC MarketScape has positioned Cisco as a Chief within the 2025–2026 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers in North America and a Chief within the 2025 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers in Europe.
Thanks to everybody at Cisco and at our companions for making this recognition potential. As AI adjustments the best way we work, we’re extra dedicated than ever to offering entry to in-demand expertise to learners throughout the globe.
Studying as mission-critical infrastructure
“The arrival of AI and different rising applied sciences provides a brand new dimension of complexity to an ecosystem already burdened by widening IT expertise shortages,” based on IDC MarketScape for North America IT Coaching Providers. The report continues: “IDC tasks that by the tip of subsequent yr, expertise shortages might price the worldwide financial system as much as US$5.5 trillion in misplaced income, product delays, high quality points, and impaired competitiveness.” Workforce improvement is now not a nice-to-have. It’s foundational infrastructure for competitiveness in an AI-driven financial system.
At Cisco, we’ve all the time believed that know-how alone doesn’t drive transformation—individuals do. That perception is mirrored in our end-to-end studying ecosystem, designed to assist people, groups, and enterprises construct expertise that matter as we speak whereas making ready for what’s subsequent.
Proper now, which means making ready groups to work with AI. The World Financial Discussion board predicts that by 2030, 39 p.c of staff’ core expertise will change. That applies to everybody, not simply individuals in ICT and even ICT-adjacent roles. And naturally, the dominant driver of that shift in expertise is AI and technological change.
A generational problem
Our means to fulfill this want for reskilling—each for people and for enterprises—may have implications for generations. At Be taught with Cisco, we’re addressing the problem head-on.
Cisco Networking Academy’s Introduction to Fashionable AI, now out there in 12 languages, is already one in every of our hottest programs. The NetAcad group can be releasing a whole suite of studying known as “Apply AI.” The primary module exhibits tips on how to use AI-driven thematic evaluation to raised perceive buyer suggestions. The subsequent module clearly teaches anybody to make use of AI to write down and replace a resume. Additional programs and your entire Apply AI curriculum can be introduced at Cisco Reside Amsterdam.
We’re additionally seeing thrilling traction with our AI Enterprise Practitioner Studying Path, out there on Cisco U. This Studying Path helps professionals in any respect ranges, in all industries, construct foundational AI expertise and lead accountable adoption of AI by way of strategic use and a variety of enterprise purposes.
ICT staff can count on even larger adjustments. In 2024, the primary report from the AI-Enabled Workforce Consortium discovered that 90 p.c of ICT-related roles will expertise excessive or reasonable ranges of transformation from AI. The second report, issued only a yr later, discovered that 78 p.c of ICT-related job roles have been already being reworked.
We’re reworking our certifications portfolio simply as shortly. We’re updating current coursework and certifications to include new, in-demand expertise, and we’re including new studying and certifications to show and validate AI-specific expertise. These embody:
- The Cisco AI Infrastructure Specialist, which lies throughout the CCNP Information Middle certification observe. It permits learners to construct and validate expertise in deploying, migrating, and working AI options on Cisco knowledge middle infrastructure, in addition to in monitoring and troubleshooting.
- The AI Technical Practitioner certification focuses on synthetic intelligence and machine studying workloads, serving to technical professionals turn into AI-ready and efficiently embed AI into their workflows.
- The CCDE-AI Infrastructure specialization permits professional networking professionals to validate their means to design, provision, and optimize networks and compute energy for as we speak’s AI workloads. It encompasses information of AI and machine studying, in addition to issues referring to networks, safety, {hardware}, and the atmosphere.
We’ll proceed to make these expertise out there by way of our linked, multiplatform ecosystem:
- Cisco Networking Academy
- Cisco U.
- Cisco Studying Community
- A globally acknowledged certification program
Collectively, these platforms help roughly 7 million learners annually and greater than 28 million learners worldwide since inception, spanning foundational digital literacy by way of expert-level mastery.
Personalised, AI-driven studying at international scale
As AI transforms how work will get completed, it’s additionally redefining how individuals be taught.
Via Cisco U., learners can establish talent gaps, obtain tailor-made content material, and observe progress over time—shifting studying from reactive coaching to proactive expertise improvement.
From GenAI-powered assessments and adaptive apply exams to dynamic content material updates, Cisco is embedding intelligence instantly into the training expertise—whereas persevering with to pair know-how with professional instruction, mentorship, and neighborhood help.
Studying by doing: Fingers-on expertise that mirrors actuality
Cisco’s ecosystem is constructed round real-world purposes, making ready learners with job-ready expertise. We’re emphasizing project-based studying—comparable to that present in our Information Science Necessities with Python course, which was lately highlighted in a white paper launched on the World Financial Discussion board.
Throughout our portfolio, learners interact with digital labs, hardware-based distant labs, sensible simulations, Seize the Flag challenges, and project-based experiences that mirror enterprise environments. They’ll construct, safe, automate, and troubleshoot networks utilizing the identical instruments and situations they’ll encounter on the job.
This experiential strategy extends to international and regional occasions comparable to Cisco Reside, hackathons, and expert-moderated examine teams — serving to learners construct not simply expertise, however confidence, credibility, and neighborhood.
Main the way forward for IT studying
In an period the place the flexibility to repeatedly be taught is the last word aggressive benefit, we consider IDC MarketScape’s recognition reinforces what we see day-after-day: expertise are the muse of innovation, resilience, and financial development.
At Cisco, we stay dedicated to empowering learners, companions, and clients throughout North America, Europe, and past with the information and hands-on expertise they should lead in an AI-powered world—as we speak and into the longer term.
As a result of when individuals thrive, know-how transforms.
The IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers analyzes IT coaching companies with portfolios which are applicable to organizations contemplating vital digital and AI transformation initiatives.
The inclusion standards embody:
- A breadth of choices
- Measurement and breadth of choices that may considerably contribute to transformation
- initiatives
- Vital know-how experience that’s vital to transformation initiatives
IDC MarketScape: European IT Coaching Providers 2025 Vendor Evaluation, #EUR153005625, December 2025
IDC MarketScape: North America IT Coaching Providers 2025-2026 Vendor Evaluation, #US52991625, December 2025
To be taught extra about what Cisco gives go to us right here.
Join Cisco U. | Be a part of the Cisco Studying Community as we speak at no cost.
Be taught with Cisco
X | Threads | Fb | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube
Use #CiscoU and #CiscoCert to hitch the dialog.