Cisco Podcast Network

In this episode Robin Olds interviews Tom Footitt, Cisco Senior Director of Product Management for Crosswork Assurance, about how AI — especially agentic systems and faster LLMs — is changing network traffic patterns and why observability and assurance are critical.

They discuss new KPIs like time-to-first-token and inter-token latency, passive behavioral analysis of encrypted traffic, predictive AIOps, and the importance of security, sovereignty, and performance for service providers offering AI services.

This week is a true charcuterie board of an episode: a little career news, a little AI, and a surprisingly serious debate about crackers. Kat recaps her trip to San Francisco, shares some news about her new role, and explains why a tea leaf salad earned “best bite of the weekend.” Meanwhile, Ian reveals that he has very specific charcuterie standards and is now using Haiku almost exclusively because, apparently, he’s saving the world one AI prompt at a time.

They also catch up on what they learned from Annie Hardy, get excited about Cisco’s new AI agents, and try to make sense of ChatGPT’s new iMessage integration. Is it genuinely helpful, or does letting AI write your texts feel like one step too far? No conclusions are reached, but everyone agrees that “it all stays on your device” sounds exactly like something we’ll revisit when the apology statement drops.

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In this month episode we interview Andrew Yourtchenko, old timer from TAC Firewall, who also was a Technical Marketing Engineer for IPv6, who was also a release manager for the VPP dataplane and who now is working with standards body around AI and IPv6.

In this month episode we interview Andrew Yourtchenko, old timer from TAC Firewall, who also was a Technical Marketing Engineer for IPv6, who was also a release manager for the VPP dataplane and who now is working with standards body around AI and IPv6.

In this episode of The Cisco AI Insights Podcast, hosts Rafael Herrera and Sónia Marques are joined by Cisco’s Technical Leader in Machine Learning Engineering, Dr. Catarina Carvalho, to explore her pioneering concept of "AI Ergonomics," which frames human engagement as a fundamental design principle for AI development rather than a post-development chore.
The conversation examines the complexities of human-in-the-loop validation, highlighting how moving beyond simple binary feedback like "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" is essential for mitigating bias and ensuring AI systems align with practical human needs and well-being. Dr. Carvalho explains how incorporating cognitive interviews and social motivation can improve data quality, helping developers bridge the gap between model accuracy and user trust in our increasingly non-deterministic generative AI landscape.
Thank you to Dr. Catarina Carvalho for sharing her research and insights on the future of collaborative AI design. If you are interested in exploring her research and the principles behind AI ergonomics, please visit this link: https://github.com/catica/AI_ergonomics/blob/651ab17b3c8ba89d5dcc51ba2ebd1307e7262458/AI_ergonomics_.pdf