AI Will Be 'Bigger Than the Internet', says Cisco CEO

The CEO of Cisco, Chuck Robbins, was one of many business leaders who attended The World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos.

Cisco defines itself as a world technology leader, providing software and building infrastructure that powers the internet.

As a technology business, it has embraced AI and introduced services which both use it as a tool and mitigate potential risks. 

However, for the businesses that don't put AI at the forefront of their development, the risk of losing value could be detrimental, especially for technology companies. 

AI domination

Speaking in Davos, Chuck said that AI technology will be "bigger than the internet" – but that it could also be the downfall of some companies.

The world's most valuable company in 2000, it experienced an 80% drop in value as tech stocks plummeted at the turn of the millennium – known infamously as the dot-com bubble burst.

Since overcoming this drop and rebuilding, the company has partnered with NVIDIA in deploying AI and scaling infrastructure. 

Cisco places AI at the heart of its business – using the technology itself to protect its applications from AI-scale attacks and identifying security risks.

Some of its safeguarding technologies targeted towards the workplace include Cisco AI Defense and Cisco Hypershield.

Threats on cybersecurity

Cisco's CEO commented that AI will "make our cyber attacks better" and "make the scams that people see in their inboxes seem more real", referring to the threat on any person in the world.

However, with cybercriminals taking advantage of AI's development and targeting large-scale businesses, the severity of its impact could be the ruin of many businesses that fall behind the curve.

While the most successful businesses are using AI to mitigate the potential risks of the technology itself, some companies that are not tech focused or led will likely suffer the most from cyberattacks. 

For example, Nike is reported to have suffered a massive data breach involving 1.4TB of data – some of which the ransomware group responsible claims it published.

Sportswear giant Under Armour is also investigating claims of a major data breach.

The first ever primarily AI-driven cyber attack was almost successful – Chinese state-sponsored hackers exploited Anthropic's Claude AI agent but Anthropic managed to intercept and stop the attack.

This illustrates that AI technology has become both risk and remedy of cyberattacks – and, if used correctly, the way Cisco and Anthropic have trained their AI could potentially be upskilled to avoid the possibility of security breaches happening altogether.

Leaders embracing AI surge

A hot topic of conversation among tech leaders is the subject of the AI bubble, and the risk of it bursting.

Interviewed by Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock and Interim Co-Chair of the WEF, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told his audience in Davos: "For this not to be a bubble, by definition it requires that the benefits of this are more easily spread.

"To me, a long term, scalable solution is to have all of these token factories part of the real economy connected to the grid, connected to the telco network – and that's what will drive that scale, whether it's in the global south or in the developed world."

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has said the AI boom will create "six-figure salaries" for those who are building data centres and factories adopting it.

"It's wonderful that the jobs are related to trade craft, and we're going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steel workers, and network technicians," Jensen said in Davos.

Blue-collar roles were shown to be least likely to be automated in a Microsoft 2025 report, which are roles becoming increasingly attractive to Gen-Z.

The AI divide

AI is famously controversial with consumers, with some technology companies that have decided to go against the grain, including gaming giant Nintendo.

The brand opposes AI-generated content and is known for its passion for human-made work.

At a smaller scale, start-ups in specialised industries may still rely on traditional software to avoid high costs and the complexity of AI adoption.

For the modern executive, their choice to adopt or abandon AI may depend on whether AI impacts their value.

Many technology companies are at risk without taking it on – whereas many existing creative companies are respected for their traditional content creation.