AI has become a nearly universal component in enterprise networking product road maps

TBR’s latest research on AI disruption among enterprise network vendors addresses the gap in measuring how deeply AI is changing how these vendors operate by providing a quantitative assessment of Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Extreme Networks using TBR’s ©Human Intensity Reduction Index (HIRI). HIRI is a proprietary metric that provides a direct measure of a company’s AI, human capital, utilization, offshore leverage and delivery model evolution on its operating margin. The metric helps distinguish genuine business-model disruption from window-dressing AI announcements.
 
Our initial results show an industry in transition. HIRI and operating margins are improving across the peer group, but AI is only one part of the story. Restructuring efforts, revenue growth, subscription adoption and portfolio consolidation continue to strongly influence workforce productivity. Additionally, customer demand for AI-based solutions to support their own AI transformations boosts financial performance independent of the vendors’ internal AI investments.

HIRI helps separate AI-related activity from routine business operations changes

The three vendors illustrate different approaches to achieving the same fundamental goal. Cisco demonstrates the clearest evidence of AI directly handling work, including 145,000 customer support cases resolved without human intervention. Cisco has also publicly touted that AI agents are now available to all remaining employees following its latest round of layoffs. HPE is leveraging AI enhancements along with the Juniper integration, creating opportunities to reuse development resources across a much larger networking portfolio. Extreme Networks is taking a product-led approach, using Agent ONE and Platform ONE to advance autonomous networking and accelerate its transition toward a more SaaS-oriented business model.
 
HIRI is only part of the story, however. Through our research, we also examine how AI is disrupting vendors’ operating, commercial, delivery and partner models, layering a qualitative lens over quantitative metrics. This analysis makes it clear that AI is only part of the broader efficiency story for these vendors. One of the most important emerging AI-centric themes is the progression from AI assistants toward agentic and autonomous systems that can increasingly investigate, troubleshoot and execute network operations with less human intervention. These vendors are both producers and consumers of this technology, placing them all squarely at the center of this transformation. There are also very real, nontechnological roadblocks to this progress, namely FOBO (fear of becoming obsolete) and the underlying hesitation among end users to adopt and embrace AI, a challenge companies continue to seek to overcome.
 
TBR’s AI disruption research will continue to examine whether enterprise network vendors’ investments in AI are materially changing how they operate, generate revenue, deliver technology and engage their ecosystems. Access the current enterprise network vendor AI disruption data and analysis with a TBR Insight Center™ free trial.