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Cisco today made Cisco IQ generally available to partners at Cisco Partner Summit in Vancouver, opening the support platform’s telemetry and automation to partner workflows through a Cisco IQ MCP Server, expanded API access, and role-based access control that lets a customer grant its partner direct visibility into its installed base. Cisco says the platform has onboarded more than 16,000 customers and 19 million devices since April. The same announcement adds AgenticOps tooling to Cisco Cloud Control, a quantum-resilient Wi-Fi 7 access point, a wider Live Protect footprint, and a revised partner program with higher incentive rates. “Our partners are where Cisco meets the customer, and the AI era is asking more of all of us,” said Tim Coogan, SVP, Global Partner Sales, Cisco. “Customers need partners with the agility to move first and fast. By combining the strength of the Cisco 360 Partner Program with Cisco IQ and Cisco Cloud Control, we’re giving every type of partner new ways to deliver that and be rewarded for it, from the advisor who shapes a decision to the partner who delivers and supports it.” AgenticOps, Model Foundry, and Native ThousandEyes Telemetry Cloud Control, the console Cisco introduced in June as one login for human operators and AI agents, picks up tooling built for automated administration. Model Foundry is a new Cloud Control platform service for discovering, evaluating, fine-tuning, and running Cisco’s purpose-built models on a customer’s data, and it is the exclusive home of Cisco’s newest model versions and weights before broader release. It enters Controlled Availability with partners first, and launches with Deep Network 1.4 for network investigation and root-cause analysis, Antares-3B for vulnerability localization, Decision Model 1.0 as a tool-selection layer for network agents, and Cisco Time Series Model 1.0 for observability data. Partners work through tenant-scoped API keys with per-model access controls and usage visibility by model, key, and day, and the fine-tuning pipeline, GPUs included, runs base and tuned models side by side for evaluation. Cisco is also introducing MCP servers for its networking platforms, a standardized bridge that lets AI tools read live network data without the custom connectors partners would otherwise build and maintain for troubleshooting and reporting workflows. ThousandEyes now runs natively on Cisco Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points, included with eligible Cisco Networking Essentials and Advantage licenses with nothing extra to buy, deploy, or configure. The always-on agent runs automated background testing to validate application and network performance around the clock, even when no users are online. For operational access, Cisco is developing Cisco Privileged Infrastructure Access with Teleport, which gives network teams and AI agents task-specific access to Cisco routers and switches through short-lived, identity-bound certificates; sessions are recorded, privilege expires when the session ends, and customers on Cisco ISE and TACACS+ can reuse the policy and device context they already manage. Quantum-Resilient Wi-Fi 7 Hardware and Live Protect Platform Expansion The hardware piece is the Cisco Wireless CW9176ISEC, which Cisco calls the industry’s first Wi-Fi 7 access point with quantum-resilient capabilities. It builds on the CW9176I with security aligned to CNSA 2.0, the NSA’s quantum-resistant algorithm suite that new national security system deployments must meet from January 1, 2027. Post-quantum cryptography over the air arrives in January across Cisco’s Wi-Fi 7 access point portfolio on Qualcomm Technologies silicon, with the complete client-side path supported by an Intel Wi-Fi chipset and driver on Windows, so Intel-based Windows machines are the first clients that can use it. Cisco Wireless 9800 Series controllers and Campus Gateways get the same quantum-resilient refresh in January. Live Protect, the runtime mitigation that narrows the gap between a vulnerability disclosure and a completed patch on supported platforms, widens its footprint. It now covers N9000 Series Switches, N9300 Smart Switches, Catalyst SD-WAN, C9000 Series Smart Switches, and CW9800 Wireless Controllers, with Cisco 8000 Secure Routers and Cisco Firewalls intended to follow by the end of 2026. When Cisco introduced Live Protect in June, the supported list was the N9000 alone, with campus switches and secure routers promised for later in the year. Cisco IQ Diagnostic Playbooks and Technical Support Integrations On the Cisco IQ side, new AI-powered Quantum Safe and Software End of Vulnerability Support (EoVS) playbooks flag risks that routine patching does not catch, and Priority Bugs and Software Conformance Assessments spot outage risks, prioritize remediation, and scope upgrade or hardening work. The Cloud Control integration surfaces that risk intelligence in real time, quantum-readiness status included, and enables one-click action on at-risk, controller-managed devices from inside Cloud Control. Cisco’s AI Assistant now troubleshoots with device diagnostics and Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) knowledge behind it, and a TAC case can be created, escalated, and closed from within the assistant. Under Cisco IQ Partner Support Standard, partners deliver that intelligence under their brand and through their experts, which is the piece that turns Cisco IQ from a Cisco support tool into something a partner sells. “For too long, partners walked into customer conversations without the same view Cisco had. That changes today,” said Liz Centoni, EVP and Chief Customer Experience Officer, Cisco. “With Cisco IQ Partner Support Standard, partners get that same intelligence under their own brand, delivered through their own experts. It’s their name. Their customer relationship. Their services practice. Cisco IQ is the engine. Partners are the business.” Cisco 360 Partner Program Revisions and Incentive Rates As the Cisco 360 Partner Program enters its first full year, it adds dedicated paths for Advisors, Developers, and Distributors. Ecosystem Deal Registration formally recognizes Advisor and Developer contributions that lead to transactions, Advisor and Developer Partner Value Indexes (PVIs) are available now, and a unified Distributor PVI is scheduled for spring 2027. Under the Cisco Partner Incentive (CPI) structure, the ACV growth reward rises 50 percent, Adopt rewards double across all use cases, and a new Adopt incentive covers Cisco IQ onboarding. Preferred and Portfolio partners earn an incremental 2 percent cross-sell bonus for expanding accounts into net-new Cisco architectures, Splunk included. New operations tools include deal registration visibility in the Partner Experience Platform (PXP), PVI APIs for trend analysis and eligibility tracking, a beta One Cisco Content Agent for co-branded presentations, a CPI Deal Estimator for modeling deal economics and rebate yield, and a Cisco OT Security Practitioner certification from Learn with Cisco alongside Cisco Modeling Labs 2.11.
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