Beyond the Assistant: Cisco Webex Ushers in the Era of Agentic AI, ideal for Midmarket

The narrative surrounding Artificial Intelligence in the workplace is undergoing a seismic shift. For the past several years, the conversation has been dominated by assistive AI—tools that could listen, transcribe, and summarize, acting as diligent but passive scribes. At its WebexOne 2025 event, Cisco signaled the definitive end of that era and the dawn of a new one: the age of Agentic AI. This is not merely an evolution; it is a re-imagining of AI's role from a helpful assistant to a proactive, autonomous "agentic teammate". While the scale of this vision is enterprise-grade, Techaisle analysis indicates that its most profound impact may be felt within the midmarket, where the automation of complex workflows is not a luxury, but a critical engine for growth and competitive advantage.

From Passive Assistance to Proactive Action

Cisco’s core message was a move "from this kind of notion of chat bots that intelligently answered our questions to agents that are going to conduct tasks and jobs almost fully autonomously on our behalf". This transition is the central pillar of its “Connected Intelligence” vision and is embodied by the introduction of five new AI Agents for the Webex Suite. These agents are designed to move beyond reporting on what happened in a meeting to actively participating in the work that follows.

• The Notetaker Agent: This agent captures summaries and action items from in-person conversations using the Webex app or a Cisco device.
• The Polling Agent: It contextually listens to meeting conversations and proactively suggests live polls to gauge team sentiment or gather immediate feedback, eliminating the friction of creating them manually.
• The Task Agent: Going beyond listing action items, this agent can be delegated to complete them—for example, by automatically creating a Jira ticket based on a technical discussion.
• The Meeting Scheduler Agent: This agent intelligently identifies the need for a follow-up, finds a suitable time for all required participants, and even drafts an agenda based on the prior conversation’s context.
• The Receptionist Agent: Leveraging technology from its Contact Center portfolio, this voice-enabled agent can handle routine inbound calls, answer queries, and route customers, acting as an AI-powered automated attendant for Webex Calling.

The Midmarket Perspective: A Productivity Force Multiplier

For large enterprises, these agents represent a significant efficiency gain. For midmarket businesses, their impact is transformational. Midmarket firms operate with inherent resource constraints—leaner teams, fewer dedicated specialists, and a constant pressure to do more with less. In this environment, workflow friction is not an inconvenience; it is a direct inhibitor of growth.

Techaisle sees the value of these agents as a force multiplier for the midmarket:

• The Notetaker for in-person meetings ensures that valuable, spontaneous brainstorming sessions—the lifeblood of agile midmarket innovation—are captured and made actionable without administrative overhead.
• The Polling Agent democratizes decision-making and real-time feedback, a crucial capability for leaders who need to maintain the pulse of their organization without investing in complex survey platforms.
• The Task Agent is perhaps the most critical. A midmarket business often lacks a dedicated project management office. Handoffs between sales, engineering, and support can be a point of failure. By automating the creation of tickets or CRM updates directly from a meeting, the Task Agent reduces the risk of dropped balls and accelerates project velocity.
• The Meeting Scheduler and Receptionist directly attack administrative overhead, freeing up valuable human capital to focus on revenue-generating activities and customer-facing roles rather than scheduling logistics or call routing.

The AI-to-AI Frontier: Breaking Down Silos

A crucial component of Cisco's agentic vision is the acknowledgment that work happens across multiple platforms. The announcement of a bi-directional integration with Microsoft Copilot is a landmark move. This allows a user in Webex to query for information in SharePoint, and conversely, a user building a PowerPoint deck to pull summaries from a recent Webex meeting directly within the Copilot interface.

This is a perfect example of what Cisco calls "AI to AI communication". For a midmarket company that has likely standardized on Microsoft 365 for productivity but may use Webex for its robust calling and meeting capabilities, this integration is a powerful problem-solver. It prevents data silos and eliminates the "swivel-chair" inefficiency of toggling between applications, ensuring that the context of work is not lost at the application boundary.

Guidance for the Midmarket

1. For Business Leaders: Do not view agentic AI as a futuristic concept. Identify one high-friction, cross-functional workflow in your organization today (e.g., customer issue resolution) and pilot the Task Agent to measure its direct impact on speed and accuracy. The ROI is likely to be immediate and substantial.
2. For IT Leaders: The power of these agents comes from their integration into core business systems like Jira and CRMs. Your primary role is to establish the secure, API-driven framework that allows for this integration while maintaining strict data governance and access controls.
3. For Channel Partners: The conversation with your midmarket customers must evolve from selling collaboration seats to architecting automated business workflows. Develop service packages around "AI-Powered Workflow Modernization" that help clients identify and implement high-impact use cases for these new agents.

Techaisle Final Word

With its WebexOne 2025 announcements, Cisco has fundamentally shifted the AI conversation from passive summarization to active automation. By launching a suite of "agentic teammates," it is providing tools that are not just incrementally better but categorically different. For the midmarket, this is not just an interesting technological development; it is a direct answer to the persistent challenge of resource optimization. Agentic AI promises to automate the mundane, accelerate workflows, and unlock the human potential that is the true engine of midmarket growth.