AI is forcing companies to rethink assumptions they’ve had for years. One cloud provider. One place for data. One approved set of tools. That world is changing fast. At Cisco Live, I sat down with Arun Dev from Equinix to discuss what enterprises are getting right and wrong as they scale AI.

A few themes stood out:

* AI is pushing organizations beyond a single cloud strategy and into a much more connected ecosystem.

* As AI becomes part of operations, trust becomes critical. Just because an answer sounds right doesn’t mean it is.

* The pace of innovation is so fast that companies can’t afford to rebuild infrastructure every time a new model is released.

* Employees are already using AI tools. The challenge isn’t stopping them. It’s creating the right guardrails around security, governance, and cost.

* Data is no longer living in one place. As AI workloads spread across clouds, data centers, and edge environments, networks are becoming a strategic asset.

One thing that really resonated with me:

The AI conversation is often about models. But the bigger challenge may be building an architecture that can adapt as models, data, and business needs continue to evolve.

Great conversation with Arun on the realities of enterprise AI adoption and what leaders should be thinking about today.

#data #ai #ciscolive #equinix #observability #api #agents #theravitshow