On this episode of Direct from the Expo, the Collab Collective’s Craig Durr speaks with Snorre Kjesbu, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Collaboration at Cisco, live at WebexOne 2026 in Austin, Texas. Their conversation explores Cisco’s Connected Intelligence vision and how AI, collaboration, networking, and security can work together to improve customer experiences, employee productivity, and workplace operations.
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Craig Durr: Everyone, this is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder of the Collab Collective, and I want to welcome you to a special edition of Direct from the Expo. We are here live at WebexOne 2026 in my hometown of Austin, Texas, and I love this because I have a chance to introduce friends to my hometown as well as have them share their stories about going out, like Snorre.
Snorre, how are you doing?
Snorre Kjesbu: I'm doing great, and thank you for having me. It's fantastic to be here in Austin.
Craig Durr: Good. We have Snorre Jesbu. He is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Collaboration for Cisco.
Snorre Kjesbu: I am. Thank you.
Craig Durr: I wanted to make sure I got the title right there. Hey, you guys just got off stage. There is so much energy in the room. It is just it. You can cut through it. It's so strong. You had great announcements. Some that caught my eye were like a new AI-first Webex Experience. You had Dialog for the contact center, and you're redefining how people are thinking about the workplace. There's a lot of big ideas here, but there's got to be some theme that's tying them all together. Can you help me?
Snorre Kjesbu: Yeah, so there is an overarching theme here, and we call it Connected Intelligence. And what is that? So when I started in this industry, and also even if you go back only a couple years, we were-it was really about people to people. Whether you were in a meeting, a call, or a contact center, or a device, it was people to people. But that has dramatically shifted.
You know, agents are entering the workforce at unprecedented scale, so you need people to do AI communications as well, right? Then you also have AI to AI, so you have people to people, people to AI, AI to AI. And to make sure that the AI agents can work with other agents is also absolutely essential to what we do. For all of that, the overarching umbrella is Connected Intelligence.
Craig Durr: So the Connected Intelligence winds up being that fabric that ties all these great eyes together. Now, you introduced three great themes, and I'm going to touch upon them if I may. The first ones that you talked about, and I really liked, was the idea of context. Great example, you talked about contact centers becoming context centers. There's nuance in that word. What were you implying when you were talking about context?
Snorre Kjesbu: Really, that you go from contact center to context center. So whenever you and I relate to a brand or to a company that we have a relationship with, wouldn't it be great if they had all the context for our interactions, so that it had the history, not only of when we spoke to that contact center or contact center agent the last time or the time before, but also if you have called them and spoken to them, or you've had a meeting with them as well, and you actually can bring all of that information in so that you don't start back on zero every single time and needing to explain yourself, but really that you bring in the information is actually there pervasively for that brand to be able to offer you the best possible service and solution.
Craig Durr: Yeah, this is for the customer experience. You and your team are bringing this forward for the employee experience as well. There's contextual awareness within the new AI-enabled Webex, right?
Snorre Kjesbu: Yeah, it is because you need to think about it there as well. Can you go from sort of an individual event to a meeting? Can you actually use all of that information as well and all the context you have in all the interactions you have at work. You know, we message each other, we meet, we call, we have a lot of different interactions. When you bring that together, and you have all of that information, I can say, “Okay, I'm meeting Craig. What do I need to be prepared for?” He will have the knowledge and the context to really prepare me for all of that upfront and also be able to set up my day in a way that works. So I think that this is not only for contact centers, but also in the workplace. Using these types of tools and using AI this way is a massive shift.
Craig Durr: This is that term that I heard being used: the digital coworker. This is the opportunity that AI is actually enabling you for productivity, efficiency, but in a way that's very proactive. It's very symbiotic.
Snorre Kjesbu: Yeah, and not only proactive, but also it has memory, it has understanding, and you bring all of those pieces together. It's almost like everyone can have their own chief of staff.
Craig Durr: I wish I had mine. That's all I wish for.
Snorre Kjesbu: We could get you that, by the way, and it's called Webex.
Craig Durr: There you go. Perfect. I'm going to get that. I already have it. One of the other areas that you actually were exploring and announcing new features and new enablements here was in the workplace, the physical workplace in itself. And I know this is near and dear to your heart because this is one of the areas that you've worked with closely for a very long time. You've started with the workspace, and then the conversation is turning to the workplace. What does that mean?
Snorre Kjesbu: Let's dial back, and we started that with two fundamental questions. Number one: How can everyone in the workspace get a better experience? Number two: How can facilities managers and IT organizations operate this in a more efficient way, and have data to make better informed decisions?
Two very simple questions: user experience and saving money. Literally, simple as that. So what we have done, and the thing that has happened when Jeetu Patel brought Cisco together into really three areas: AI-ready data center, future-proof workplaces, and security. By being able to drive the company together, we have also been able to bring collaboration and networking together. Because out of a Wi-Fi access point, out of a network component or a router or a switch, you get data. Out of collaboration gear, you get data. Out of the touch panel outside of your office, you get data. The touch panel and the microphones in the office, you get data.
By having access to all of that data, you can start asking questions. Can I fit 25% more people into this building? That's the big bucks. Do I need to rent another floor and get another building? I mean, that's expensive. You can answer that and say, you know what? We actually think you can by adding some more access points, maybe adding a meeting room or three. You can actually get there. You can get those types of answers out of that data. You can also do things like use less power, and then by doing this, having better Wi-Fi coverage, having the right number of meeting rooms, having the right number of collaboration devices, you can also get a much better experience for the people who are actually in the workspace.
So with that, you answer both a better experience for the people that are in the office, and you really can save some good money for the people that operate.
Craig Durr: So you've got these disparate stakeholders in this scenario, you've got IT facilities, real estate. They all are driven by the same need for data, and what you're doing is showing the interconnectivity between these data points.
Snorre Kjesbu: We show that, not only that, but through Cisco, both our networking and also collaboration, there is a lot of data these companies and organizations have access to. Then, we have Cisco Spaces and also Splunk, that is super at actually taking and consuming these data and bring that in a format that makes it possible to actually consume them, and then that cross that with AI and Cisco's new Cisco Cloud Control, which is the one fabric across networking, security, collaboration, etc. Then, you actually have access to all of this, and by using all of that, you can make the workplace a better place.
Craig Durr: And that's where a lot of power comes in. Not only do you have Workspace Advisor in there as well, but you have a lot of these other analytical tools that can help parse that data into these usable formats.
Snorre Kjesbu: And not only that, but instead of having anecdotal evidence or sayings, you can actually get data. You could see that, you know, around lunchtime there are a lot of people obviously going to the cafeteria, right? And they're having a worse network experience, you know. Add a couple Wi-Fi access points, and you solve that because you get that data, and you can actually resolve it by doing it that way. So, I put it like this, Craig. We give the IT organization and the facilities organization tools to give them superpowers.
Craig Durr: That's great. The intelligent workplace experience. I love it. That's great. Let's talk back to the end user experience right now, because one of those things that you're dealing with in these AI empowered workflows, you have to also enable trust. These people need to make sure they still feel in control of the process. How are you addressing that?
Snorre Kjesbu: You know, in a number of ways. So first of all, collaboration in 2026 is mission critical everywhere.
Craig Durr: Yeah, it's true.
Snorre Kjesbu: Okay, if it's mission critical everywhere, you need to trust it. And the way we think about it is that trust is architectural. If you design this and build this right, and you have the right architecture, you can also trust what's going on. And I think the thinking from Cisco around being enterprise ready and also bringing in our security business. And we spoke about the contact center here. You know, AI Defense is fused into the contact center. And Jeetu talks about how control is the new moat.
Craig Durr: Oh, great!
Snorre Kjesbu: Okay, in AI, control is the new moat. So really, around your castle, you need that piece of water that can protect you. And I think we need to think more and more like that. I think that's what Cisco is bringing to the table as well because we can actually fuse security into the products. It's not something that is bolted on or thought about afterwards. It's actually designed in, and we've done that on our devices. We've done it on the meeting and calling side, and we're doing it on the contact center side.
Craig Durr: Now, one of these interesting things that lend to this, the strength of this, is a lot of AI decisions have already been made. People have, they're going to have a multi-AI strategy, if you will, but it seems that Cisco has a way through the observability, through the security, to still make that a trusted environment in the workspace.
Snorre Kjesbu: Yeah, and I think that there will always be a combination. It will be a combination of agents that's been designed by Cisco and that's part of the collaboration offer, but also people want to use their own large language models or other agents that they want to have in there. I frequently talk about it like this: We should be the Switzerland of AI agents and large language models and allow all of them in there. But then the security piece is also absolutely essential to solve that. And I think that the experience and the solutions we have through the rest of Cisco's businesses is actually something we can actually then bring into the collaboration space.
Craig Durr: Fantastic. Well, Snorre, there's been a lot of information shared, and I'm sure people want to know how they can learn more. Now, if they're here at Webex, I'm sure they can go to the expo floor and learn more. But if they're not, what should be their next steps? What should they do?
Snorre Kjesbu: I think the key now is back to a few of the things we we have spoke about, and that is that in a turbulent world, go back, think about your your trust, think about your security, think about enterprise ready, and think about what you operate on on collaboration is something that's mission critical. Pick the pieces and put them together that can actually solve that for you.
Craig Durr: That is great advice. I appreciate that, Snorre. Thank you so much for these insights. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time.
Thank you so much, everyone. This is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst with the Collab Collective. Join us for some more insights from WebexOne 2026.