Cisco brings collaborative agents and Claude into Webex chats

08/10 14:15 - Cisco brings collaborative agents and Claude into Webex chats
Cisco is adding AI agents to Webex group chats so colleagues can assign them work and share the results, part of a wider revamp of the Webex app. Announced at the WebexOne conference Wednesday, users will soon be able to @mention agents in Webex “spaces” to help schedule meetings, take notes, and track tasks. “You work with AI, but your teammates may never see that work — they can’t build on it, contribute to it, or reuse it,” said Amit Barave, Cisco vice president and general manager for Webex Suite and AI, in a blog post. “With Webex, agents become part of the team, participating where the work is happening.” “This makes AI a shared capability for the team,” said Snorre Kjesbu, Cisco vice president and general manager for collaboration, in a separate blog post. “It can help people prepare together, carry decisions forward, and coordinate the next steps without losing the context of the conversation.” As well as Webex spaces, the collaborative agents will be accessible during video and voice calls via the AI Assistant side panel, though these will only be visible to individual users, rather than teams, a Cisco spokesperson said. Cisco’s announcement reflects the growing push from collaboration software vendors to bring AI agents directly into their applications, said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst at Metrigy. By positioning agents where employees are already collaborating, they are able to perform tasks such as managing meeting agendas, facilitating, and providing contextual information into meetings. “We’ve seen similar efforts by Slack, with Claude Tag, and with Zoom via ZoomMate,” said Lazar. “Like the others, the strength of the agent is dependent on its access to information, so the key is enabling connectivity to external data sources such as CRM, ERP, project management, etc.” The changes are part of a wider Webex app refresh app that includes a new personalized landing page to highlight work priorities and upcoming meetings, as well as suggest follow-up actions, such as responding to messages or reviewing meeting recaps. “The new assistant literally knows what you are doing and your upcoming schedule and knows more than other major providers,” said Jim Lundy, CEO of Aragon Research. “In fact, I’d say that their assistant could be sold unbundled.” width="1024" height="657" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"> Cisco In addition, Cisco is extending the range of third-party agents accessible from Webex, too. Anthropic’s Claude Managed Agents — cloud-hosted agents that process multi-step tasks in the background — can be added to group conversations as a team member to complete tasks, as well as OpenAI’s recently announced “dot” agents. Cisco also unveiled more of its own native Webex agents. Personal Agents for Webex Calling can screen calls to help users avoid missing an important call when they’re unavailable to speak. The agents can “converse with callers to understand their needs and determine urgency, prioritize what matters most, and take action on your behalf,” Barava said. Personal Agents for Webex Calling will be available in the first quarter of 2027, alongside the new Webex app, collaborative agents, third-party agents. A previously announced Translator agent is now in “controlled availability” ahead of a general release in November. This provides real-time translation in the Webex app, as well as Cisco 9800 Series Desk Phones, with support for ten languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish. An AI Coach agent for Vidcast — Cisco’s tool for short form, asynchronous video messaging in Webex — is aimed at helping users improve communication performance. “The AI Coach watches and listens while a presenter delivers, reacts to pacing, tone, and word choice as they happen, and asks the questions a live audience would,” said Barave. The AI Coach agent is available now. Metrigy’s Lazar said he has witnessed an uptick in business demand for agentic tools in collaboration applications generally. “They offer the potential to bring context into meetings, saving time and increasing focus. Cisco’s aim is to ensure that the Webex App can remain the place where people work, rather than other apps or AI interfaces like Claude Cowork,” he said. “I would say the only weakness in the Cisco portfolio now is ability to capture data from non-Webex meetings. They lack the capability that Zoom now has to capture audio from third-party or external meetings.” A Cisco spokesperson said that some Webex AI capabilities are available at no extra cost in Webex Suite, which costs $25 per user each month, and Enterprise tiers. More advanced features — such as Polling and Translator agents, the Personal Agents for Calling, and collaborative agent functionality — will require a new “Enhanced AI Offer for AI” add-on. This will be available in the coming weeks, Cisco said, though pricing for the add-on was not provided. Cisco didn’t specify if any of the AI features will require any additional, usage-based costs on top of fixed subscription fees. The company recently stated that the Translator agent provides 50 minutes of translation per user each month, with additional usage requiring an “add-on.” ...