AI’s affect is simple, however prospects face mounting urgency to unlock its worth amid infrastructure constraints, information complexities, and expertise gaps. For the second yr in a row, we’ve carried out a survey of companions around the globe to uncover the challenges and alternatives they face in supporting their prospects’ AI ambitions. Our 2025 research, “From Readiness to Realization highlights each the worth gaps and new progress alternatives.
Clear themes are rising:
- IT Infrastructure is seeing extra load, much less AI readiness and stays the lacking basis in prospects’ potential to derive worth from AI.
- AI information and governance is growing in complexity, a transparent space the place companions have alternative to realize expertise and data.
- The subsequent waves of progress are already revealing themselves with Agentic and Edge AI, even when prospects are simply beginning on the journey.
Our double-blind survey of greater than 1,500 companions comes on the heels of Cisco’s flagship AI Readiness Index which explores world corporations’ potential to undertake and benefit from AI. That research confirmed that essentially the most AI-ready organizations are 4x extra prone to transfer pilots into manufacturing and 50% extra prone to see measurable worth, but deficiencies stay in infrastructure, information, governance, and expertise wanted to implement AI successfully. Our partner-focused research reinforces important buyer wants and the way Cisco companions can add essentially the most worth.
Key findings:
- Income Development: An growing variety of companions (42%, up from 35% final yr) count on that they’ll drive over 75% of their income from AI inside the subsequent 4 to 5 years.
- Buyer Expectations: Companions say that their prospects count on AI to enhance effectivity (68%, up from 63% final yr), create a greater expertise for exterior stakeholders (47%), and supply worth to inner customers (45%, up from 27%).
- Growing Urgency: Virtually all companions (92%) report a rising sense of urgency amongst prospects to appreciate a return on their expertise funding, with greater than half (52%) stating that urgency has elevated considerably prior to now six months, pushed by C-suite calls for for tangible outcomes and worth from AI investments.
- Extra Load, Much less Readiness: 95% suppose the workload of IT infrastructure will enhance as deployment of AI / AI powered applied sciences will increase, but simply over half (58%) price general AI readiness of shoppers’ IT infrastructure as reasonable at greatest.
- AI Knowledge and Governance Complexity: Greater than a 3rd (35%) determine inadequate information readiness and poor information high quality as one of many prime challenges that hinder prospects’ deployment of AI applied sciences at scale and velocity. Most companions (93%) say they perceive the information wants of their prospects. But relating to having the suitable expertise and sources, solely half say they’re
- The Subsequent Horizon: Each Agentic and Edge AI symbolize new waves of progress for patrons beginning the journey. Almost two-thirds (62%) of companions stated prospects discover it troublesome to search out the suitable steadiness between Agentic AI, bots and human involvement in workflows. To assist Edge AI at scale, most prospects (75%) face obstacles in gathering, storing, and processing information successfully and should navigate a fragmented expertise (74%) with inadequate compute energy (67%).
Getting ready Companions with AI Specialization
Cisco stays dedicated to empowering our companions with the required expertise and data to assist prospects bridge the AI readiness hole by way of the Cisco Black Belt Academy. This previous yr, we launched the Cisco Nexus HyperFabric enablement journey to assist enterprises operationalize generative AI, constructing upon the AI Fundamentals for Companions coaching program that we rolled out final yr. Our survey discovered that greater than a 3rd (34%; up from 6% final yr) say they’ve restricted or no consciousness and understanding of cyber safety threats particular to AI and machine studying techniques, highlighting a necessity for continued studying as complexity will increase. Companions’ technical and gross sales excellence function a aggressive differentiator and immediately translate to enhanced program advantages and enterprise progress within the new Cisco 360 Accomplice Program, with clearer, less complicated pathways to maximise accomplice rewards.
Accelerating AI Worth and Development for Our Prospects
This yr, extra companions say a larger portion of their income will come from AI, and quicker. Almost half (40%) stated their prospects would really like AI to open new income streams for them within the subsequent 12 months. This marks a big evolution in AI’s perceived worth: from being primarily an operational enabler to turning into a direct contributor to topline progress. We encourage Cisco companions to take part in our AI coaching applications and be a part of our Early Entry Group to realize a aggressive benefit in serving to drive that progress. Collectively we’ve got an incredible alternative to place ourselves as trusted AI advisors and capitalize on this market alternative.
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