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14,000 Jobs Cut, $2.8 Billion in Restructuring Costs, and Now 90,000 AI Agents

ai agents cisco future of work workforce restructuring Aug 05, 2026

How two years of restructuring laid the groundwork for company-wide agentic workflows.

In recent years, Cisco has evolved from a global technology company primarily associated with networking hardware into a full-stack AI infrastructure and security platform. It provides the underlying networking infrastructure that connects AI systems, the security layer, and the operational visibility needed to monitor how they perform.

Its customers include hyperscalers, large enterprises, midsized businesses, and governments. Cisco’s technologies are designed to help these organizations deploy, secure, and manage AI agents at scale, essentially building the digital workforce that can perform a growing share of their operations.

On July 1, 2026, Fortune reported that Cisco would begin rolling out personalized AI agents to its approximately 90,000 employees at the start of its new fiscal year in late July, with the rollout continuing through August.

The announcement followed more than two years of workforce restructuring. Beginning in early 2024, Cisco started redirecting resources toward the technologies and businesses it believes will generate future demand and long-term value. Since then, the company has repeatedly emphasized that it is concentrating investment in areas it expects will accelerate growth, strengthen innovation, and shape its future.


Cisco's Workforce Restructuring Timeline 

In its February 2024 earnings release, Cisco disclosed plans to eliminate more than 4,000 positions, equal to approximately 5% of its workforce. The restructuring would cost the company approximately $800 million, primarily in severance, one-time termination benefits, and other related expenses. 

On March 18, 2024, Cisco completed its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk, significantly expanding its software, cybersecurity, data, and observability capabilities. 

Six months after the first restructuring, Cisco announced another reduction affecting approximately 7% of its global workforce, or roughly 6,000 positions. In its August 2024 earnings release, Cisco said the restructuring would allow it to invest in key growth opportunities and improve efficiency. The restructuring has cost Cisco up to $1 billion, primarily in severance, one-time termination benefits, and other related expenses.

Then, on May 13, 2026, Cisco announced another restructuring affecting nearly 4,000 roles. In its announcement, Cisco said it was reducing roles in some areas while making strategic investments in silicon, optics, security, and employees’ use of AI across the company. The restructuring is costing Cisco up to $1 billion, primarily in severance, one-time termination benefits, and other related expenses.

In July 2026, Fortune reported that Cisco would begin rolling out personalized AI agents across its workforce, with the deployment continuing through August.

Altogether, Cisco’s three restructuring plans carry a combined estimated cost of up to $2.8 billion in severance, termination benefits, and other related expenses associated with eliminating around 14,000 positions since February 2024. Cisco expects to continue recognizing charges related to its latest workforce reduction during fiscal 2027.

Despite these reductions, Cisco’s total workforce did not decline significantly. The company reported approximately 84,900 employees before the restructuring began, and 86,200 employees as of July 2025, its most recent official disclosure. More recent reporting has described the workforce as approximately 90,000 employees. 

One major reason is Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk. Based on Splunk’s last reported headcount and the workforce reduction it completed shortly before the acquisition, Cisco absorbed approximately 7,500 employees into the organization. That influx offset much of the visible headcount decline created by Cisco’s restructuring while expanding its workforce across software, cybersecurity, data analytics, and observability.

 

Cisco’s AI Agent Rollout and the Restructuring of Work

Cisco’s company-wide agent rollout marks the beginning of a new phase in which the company can collect operational data on how work is performed across its workforce.

The company has already reported significant time savings from its internal AI tools. More than 21,000 engineers are using AI-assisted coding systems, saving an average of approximately six hours per week. Employees in other functions have reported saving around five hours through tasks such as summarizing documents, finding internal information, and navigating company systems.

Cisco’s personalized AI agents will operate through Circuit, the company’s internal AI platform. When an employee gives an agent a task, the employee provides instructions and reviews or uses the resulting work. Behind that interaction, Circuit can route the request to an appropriate AI model and allow the agent to retrieve relevant company information or interact with workplace software. Depending on its permissions, the agent can research information, analyze documents, prepare content, or carry out parts of a workflow on the employee’s behalf. Because these interactions run through a shared internal platform, Cisco can observe which tasks employees are assigning to AI, identify recurring patterns of use, and determine where more work could be redesigned around automated workflows.

At enterprise scale, the value extends beyond saving individual employees a few hours. It allows more work to move through the organization with less human time, coordination, and specialist support.

 

Cisco’s AgenticOps Capabilities for Customers

Cisco’s workforce restructuring and company-wide agent rollout reflect the same operating shift the company is enabling for its customers. As Cisco develops technology that allows organizations to move more work through AI agents, it is also increasing the amount of work its own employees can manage through automated workflows.

Through AgenticOps, specialized agents can investigate problems across systems, perform operational steps, and escalate decisions that still require human approval. Cisco has said these capabilities can allow one operator to produce what previously required a team.

By allowing employees to delegate more operational tasks to AI agents, AgenticOps can change how responsibilities are distributed, how much specialist support is required, and how many employees are needed to manage the same volume of work.

As more work moves through automated workflows, the capabilities that remain valuable inside Cisco are also changing. Greater importance is likely to fall on employees who can direct, manage, secure, evaluate, and improve those workflows.

 

What We’re Watching as Cisco Restructures Work Around AI

We expect Cisco’s restructuring and company-wide agent rollout to continue revealing how the integration of AI across an organization changes roles, workflows, team structures, and hiring priorities. The evidence shows the direction of the transition. Our intuition is that its effects on the workforce are only beginning to emerge.

As those changes become more visible, employees should pay closer attention not only to how much of their work is being absorbed by AI, but to how their roles are changing and which capabilities continue to gain value.

 

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Key Sources and References

 

 

Interested in learning more about the ongoing restructuring of work and which human capabilities are gaining economic value as AI absorbs more work?

 

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by Melissa Di Negro

Lead Researcher