Cisco Live 2026: How CDW and Cisco Are Helping Move AI Projects from POC to ROI
AI agents require governance that is designed for artificial intelligence, embedded in data workflows and continuously in effect as a critical activation layer.
At Cisco Live 2026 in Las Vegas, CDW’s Cody Weaver demonstrated how the Cisco Unified Edge platform is making artificial intelligence use cases possible where they previously weren’t. Until recently, the infrastructure and compute power needed to leverage AI prevented organizations from using it at the edge. But as Weaver showed in the CDW booth at Cisco Live’s World of Solutions, the new platform is much smaller and is allowing organizations to capture and analyze data in real time. In this case, CDW was running spatial analytics in partnership with WaitTime to enhance the booth experience for visitors. As Weaver put it: “At the end of the day, our main goal at CDW is being able to show these outcomes in an agentic AI era, but being able to do so locally and with data sovereignty. And we feel like Cisco's Unified Edge platform has really changed how you can do onsite AI.”
Participants:
Cody Weaver, Cisco Data Center and AI Team Lead, CDW
Video Highlights:
- The biggest AI challenge enterprises are facing is difficulty in deriving business value from AI use cases before exhausting their budgets.
- With its new Unified Edge platform, Cisco is shrinking enterprise AI infrastructure so it can move from the data center to the edge.
- Enterprise AI is moving on-premises, giving organizations — especially in retail and manufacturing — more control over data, latency and deployment choices.
Learn how CDW can help your organization leverage agentic artificial intelligence. Talk to a CDW expert.
Joe Kuehne
Associate Editorial Director, BizTech Magazine
