Cisco’s chief customer experience officer Liz Centoni describes adopting artificial intelligence in large organizations as a difficult, painful process. Speaking about efforts to reinvent her division for the AI era, she characterizes it as “surgery without the drugs,” emphasizing that implementation is challenging rather than straightforward.
Both outlets report that Cisco’s experience has shown that simply adding AI tools to existing workflows does not automatically address underlying problems. Instead, the company focuses on redesigning parts of customer support operations to make AI more effective. In one example cited, Cisco moves beyond direct AI overlays and implements intelligent routing for support cases, aiming to better match issues with the right engineers.
According to the Times of India, this approach contributes to an improved outcome: an 88% first-time correct engineer assignment rate. The reports collectively present Centoni’s message as an acknowledgement of real operational friction while outlining Cisco’s practical steps to adapt support processes for AI-driven decision-making.
