Imagine your branch network as a busy airport. Flights (data) are constantly taking off and landing, carrying employees, devices, and applications that span Software as a Service (SaaS), private clouds, and AI workloads.

Now picture trying to inspect every single plane while keeping flights on schedule. The challenge is not just the inspections themselves, but making sure every connection is safe, fast, and on time-without grounding business in the process.

That's the daily balancing act for IT and security leaders: protecting every interaction while ensuring seamless performance. 

Understanding the AI impact: what's really happening at the branch?

Branch environments are evolving faster than ever. AI-driven, latency-sensitive applications are raising the bar for speed and reliability, while Internet of Things (IoT) and operational technology (OT) devices continue to expand the digital footprint, and with it, the attack surface.

AI traffic isn't like traditional traffic. It's dynamic, data-intensive, and often unpredictable. The real-time AI inference, model training workloads, and generative AI conversations that your network now carries each come with unique performance and security demands.

So, the questions for IT teams become less about "Can we support AI?" and more about:

• How can we identify AI traffic amid diverse application traffic and other data flows?
• How do we protect sensitive data and prevent prompt injection or leakage?
• How do we prioritize latency-sensitive workloads for optimal performance?
• How can our security controls keep pace with evolving AI applications?
• How do we define and enforce acceptable use policies to limit unsafe AI usage and balance innovation with necessary guardrails?

AI is forcing organizations to reexamine the fundamentals of latency, segmentation, visibility, and data protection. The need for identity awareness, intelligent automation, and unified visibility has never been greater.

Laying the foundation: building a smarter, more resilient edge

At Cisco, we're helping organizations prepare, adapt, and evolve for this new era. AI is changing everything at the branch: how traffic flows, how applications perform, and how security must operate. To stay ahead, organizations need a unified, cloud-managed approach that delivers visibility, automation, and protection across every branch, device, and connection.

That's where Cisco secure access service edge (SASE) architecture comes in, unifying networking and security in one intelligent, identity-aware fabric so branches can perform securely at scale, wherever AI takes them next.

Our SASE-ready solutions for the branch integrate Cisco SD-WAN, Cisco Secure Access, and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) into a single, high-performance platform. This unified fabric empowers IT teams to simplify management, enforce consistent policies, and scale efficiently across distributed environments.

Cisco Secure Access delivers further protection through its AI Access feature. This AI-native defense capability gives IT teams visibility into AI traffic intent and enables safe segmentation and granular control to reduce risks like data leakage and shadow AI.

Navigating the complexity: how AI helps manage AI

Managing modern branch networks shouldn't feel like firefighting. That's why we use AI to help control the added complexities of AI traffic. With AIOps capabilities built into Cisco SD-WAN within SASE, your network gains an intelligent copilot to make management easier.

Here's how it works:

• Cisco AI Assistant: Imagine being able to query your network status, troubleshoot issues, and gain insights using natural language such as "What's the latency for our app in branch X?"
• Predictive path recommendations: Automatically identify and switch to optimal paths before users even notice a slowdown in their applications.
• Bandwidth forecasting: Anticipate and plan for the unpredictable demands of AI workloads.
• Anomaly detection: Continuously monitor for irregular behavior, including subtle shifts caused by new AI usage patterns that may signal threats or performance issues.
• AI-powered advisories: Get contextual security and field insights to stay ahead of vulnerabilities, particularly those emerging in the AI space.

With AIOps, the branch becomes more than connected. It becomes self-optimizing, resilient, and continuously learning.

Real results: what customers gain with unified SASE

Peco Foods, a leading poultry producer with 7000 employees across 20 locations, grappled with fragmented infrastructure, inconsistent user experiences, and vulnerabilities highlighted by a 2024 security incident. To overcome these high-stakes challenges, Peco partnered with Cisco to deploy a modern SASE framework anchored by Cisco Secure Access.

This comprehensive solution unified networking and security for Peco, enabling zero-trust access, simplifying management, and ensuring consistent user experiences. The results were transformative: Peco realized a 60% reduction in troubleshooting time, 7% fewer IT tickets, and a remarkable 200% improvement in user experience.

Peco Foods now enjoys enhanced security, seamless connectivity, and a resilient network that supports their growth and is ready for tomorrow's demands. As IT Manager Mario Manzano states, "With our Cisco-powered SASE architecture, everything is visible and controllable from one unified environment."

Where we're headed: a future-ready branch for the AI era

AI is changing everything about how the branch connects and protects, and the journey is just beginning. What matters most now is building the right foundation-one that's flexible, secure, and intelligent enough to adapt as AI evolves.

The Cisco AI-powered SASE platform, built on Catalyst SD-WAN, Secure Access, and ISE, provides the foundation for a secure, high-performing, and future-ready edge. Only Cisco unifies networking, security, and observability in one cloud-managed platform that gives IT teams end-to-end control from the wide-area network (WAN) to the user.

AI may be rewriting the rules of performance and protection, but our mission remains the same: helping businesses stay connected, secure, and ready for the future, without slowing down. Your network is the runway for AI innovation. Make sure it's built to handle what's next.

Visit Cisco SASE and learn how to connect faster,
protect smarter, and operate with confidence in the AI era.

Additional resources:

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