Jeetu Patel says AI will build 70% of Cisco products by 2027, employees must upskill to stay relevant

Cisco is moving rapidly towards an AI-first future, with the company aiming for most of its products to be built entirely by AI within the next 3 years. As AI takes on a bigger role in development, Cisco's is urging engineers to rethink skills, judgement and safety to stay relevant.

Cisco is preparing for a future where AI does much of the core work of building software, and its leadership wants employees to move quickly to keep pace. Jeetu Patel, Cisco's President and Chief Product Officer, has announced on X that the company is aiming for a point where most of its products are written entirely by AI, while human engineers focus on judgement, safety and outcomes rather than just writing code.

Patel said Cisco has already crossed an important milestone. “At Cisco, we have shipped our first product at this point fully written by AI. Kudos to the AI Defense team. 100 per cent of the code in AI Defense is written by AI,” he wrote, describing it as an early sign of how software development inside the company is changing.

The push, however, goes far beyond a single product. Patel said Cisco expects to ship at least half a dozen products that are completely written by AI by the end of 2026. The longer-term target is even more ambitious. “By end of 2027, we will shoot to have 70% of our products written 100% with AI,” he said, adding that these products must be superior across quality, performance, usability, adoption and real business outcomes for customers.

Even as AI accelerates development, Patel told teams against equating speed with value. “Just because you can build it instantly doesn’t mean it is worth shipping. Create a new mental model,” he told employees, urging them to be “intellectually honest” about their skills and to learn quickly if they want to remain relevant. “The rules of the game have changed faster than anyone thought. Don’t fight it. Adjust to the new reality,” he added.

A key part of Patel’s message focused on how the role of engineers is evolving. He suggested that success in an AI-driven world will be defined less by how much code a person writes and more by how well they think and decide. “In the new world more than ever before, the next-gen engineer will define success very differently," Patel wrote. According to him, that success will depend on judgement, instinct, clarity about the most important problem to solve, good taste, and an obsession with outcomes.

Patel also placed strong emphasis on cost awareness and safety, arguing that engineers must understand unit economics and treat safety as a non-negotiable priority as AI takes on a larger role. Managing digital agents, he said, will become a core skill, with teams increasingly supported by AI systems that work continuously and change how collaboration happens inside organisations.