Cisco unveils partner incentives and AI network tools

Cisco announced a broad set of partner-program changes and artificial intelligence, network-management and security offerings at its Partner Summit, including a new service for adapting Cisco AI models and expanded access to infrastructure intelligence for partners. Model Foundry, a new service within Cisco Cloud Control, lets customers and partners discover, evaluate and fine-tune Cisco models, then run them on their own data. Cisco said the service will initially be available to partners under controlled availability. It will also provide partners early access to newer model versions and weights before broader release. Cisco said it is integrating ThousandEyes network-monitoring capabilities into Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points. Continuous background testing of application and network performance is included with eligible Networking Essentials and Advantage licenses, with no additional purchase, deployment or configuration required, the company said. Cisco also announced general availability of Cisco IQ for partners. The platform brings together customer infrastructure information and support tools, while new MCP server and API access allows partners to incorporate its...