This week, I sat down with Craig Burnham, Vice President of Product Marketing for Cisco’s Collaboration business, to go beyond the headlines and unpack what Cisco’s AI evolution actually means for business leaders.

Recorded live at Cisco Live, this episode dives into how Cisco is unifying employee and customer experiences across voice, video, and virtual agents, while keeping humans in the loop where it matters most.

Craig and I explore:

• The rise of Webex AI Agent and Webex AI Assistant, and how they’re reducing agent burnout, shortening call resolution times, and delivering truly autonomous voice and text experiences
• Why Cisco is uniquely positioned to bring cloud-based AI to on-prem environments and hybrid deployments without forcing disruptive migrations
• How Control Hub is evolving into a single pane of glass for AI visibility, governance, and ROI tracking
• What the move toward agentic AI means for IT leaders, and why the long-term impact may be greater than we expect
• How Cisco’s cinematic camera tech and AI-powered meeting features are quietly redefining hybrid work, one room at a time

We also discuss the shifting expectations around AI, from productivity hype to measurable business value, and how Cisco’s platform-first approach enables it to scale new features across contact center, meetings, calling, and more.

For more than 160 years, the Red Cross emblem has protected humanitarian organizations in times of war. But as conflict increasingly moves into cyberspace, new protections are needed for digital infrastructure.

In this episode of Business Technology Perspectives, I speak with Samit D'Cunha, legal advisor at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), about the groundbreaking Digital Emblem Project.

Samit explains how this modern emblem uses cryptographic certificates and DNS protocols to designate digital assets as protected under international humanitarian law. We explore the rise in cyberattacks on hospitals and humanitarian networks during armed conflict, and why creating a recognized, trustworthy signal of digital neutrality is now a moral and legal imperative.

We discuss:

• How the Digital Emblem mirrors the protections of its physical counterpart
• The technical infrastructure behind the project and how it ensures global applicability
• Legal, political, and diplomatic challenges in gaining global adoption
• The need for collaboration across governments, tech companies, and humanitarian actors
• What comes next as cyberwarfare becomes a greater threat to humanitarian operations

As the nature of conflict evolves, so too must the symbols that protect those who help others. This conversation is essential listening for anyone working at the intersection of cybersecurity, ethics, and international law.

In this episode of Business Technology Perspectives, host Neil C. Hughes speaks with Bulent Cinarkaya, General Manager of Field Service Management at ServiceNow, to explore how AI is transforming one of the most overlooked but essential areas of enterprise operations: field service.

Bulent shares how technologies like agentic and generative AI are reshaping frontline work in real time, giving technicians the tools to anticipate what they’ll need before arriving on site, surface answers during complex tasks, and close out jobs faster with intelligent automation. These innovations are no longer on the horizon. They are already being used to improve scheduling accuracy, reduce mean time to resolution, and capture decades of expert knowledge before it disappears.

Drawing on real examples from companies like Bell Canada, Coursera, and British Telecom, Bulent breaks down how ServiceNow is helping field teams not only boost productivity but also improve job satisfaction and customer loyalty. He also highlights how unified platforms, data-driven workflows, and strong change management are critical to scaling these gains sustainably.

If your organization still sees AI as a back-office tool, this conversation is a wake-up call. AI is now embedded in the physical world of work, helping solve operational bottlenecks while empowering people to do their best work under pressure.

Whether you're leading a service team or looking to bridge the gap between digital innovation and human impact, this episode offers a clear look at the future of field service.