At this year’s Cisco Live 2023 conference, leaders in the technology space met to explore innovation that transforms organizations. During the keynote speech, Cisco’s Chief Customer & Partner Officer, Jeff Sharritts, remarked that the goal is to “create simple, secure, and predictable unified experiences for all.” Cathy Lanier, Chief Security Officer, National Football League, joined Sharritts and the Cisco team of Alistair Wildman, SVP, Global Customer Experience; Chuck Robbins, Chair & Chief Executive Officer; Jeetu Patel, EVP & GM, Security & Collaboration, and Jonathan Davidson, EVP & GM, Cisco Networking, on the stage to further discuss unified experiences and the security that backs it.
Jeetu Patel Introduces the Future of Hybrid Work
Hybrid work is the new normal, so agencies need to construct their environments to support the shifting work experiences. Patel said, “If you think about opportunity, it is pretty unevenly distributed throughout the planet, but human potential is not. Hybrid work is one of the ways that organizations can equalize the playing field.” This can be done through reimagining not only work but also workspaces.
Through purpose-built devices enabled with AI, organizations can create immersive experiences. Patel stated that advanced technology could improve audio intelligence, voice intelligence, natural language understanding, and analytics and insights. Audio is the foundation for meetings, so capabilities such as noise removal for background noise, making sure that the call can isolate to only the person speaking, and equalizing voices are integral for meetings to run smoothly. For video intelligence, devices can bring people into focus during crowded video calls where individuals have their own highlights space with gesture recognition and auto-lighting correction. Natural language understanding is critical for an inclusive environment where workers can converse in any language and have up-to-date speech-to-text functions. Organizations can then dive into analytics and insights to see how their devices support their workers.
Another technological innovation rolling out soon is the notion of cinematic meetings. “Meetings can become fatiguing,” said Patel, “because you have the same angle of the video call for hours, and brains get tired. But they don’t get as tired when watching movies since every three to five to seven seconds, the camera angle changes and refreshes the brain.” With AI, organizations can bring this cinematic quality to their meetings.
Cathy Lanier Reflects on the NFL’s Cybersecurity Journey
Lanier has been an innovator her entire career, and that didn’t stop when she reached the NFL. She wanted to bring in technology to make the environment safer, but it is important to remember that “the more technology that you bring, the more attack surface you also bring.” Even though there is more environment to protect, partner solutions help to ease this burden.
From Lanier’s standpoint, it is “impossible not to have physical and cyber security together anymore. That convergence is critical.” By integrating cyber and physical securities together, agencies can think about security in 360 degrees. This is especially significant for the NFL regarding game day and potential threat surfaces, such as “industrial control systems and all the things that no one was thinking about when putting up metal detection and physical security barriers. We also need to secure the entire digital environment at our stadiums, like scoreboards and screens.”
It is essential to have innovative security in place to safeguard a stadium’s network, especially when dealing with 6.8 terabytes per regular game of streaming and network access. During the alarming incident around Damar Hamlin during the Buffalo Bills game, the stadium had to support an increase of 11.1 terabytes in just one hour throughout the medical crisis while ensuring that first responders could do what was needed and communicate in a secure manner.
The Cisco Live 2023 keynote emphasized the transformative power of innovation in creating unified experiences and bolstering security. Organizations can navigate the evolving work landscape and protect their environments with innovative technologies and comprehensive security measures.
To access the Cisco Live 2023 conference keynote on-demand videos, click here.
