Cisco Podcast Network

In this month’s episode of The Cisco AI Insights Podcast, hosts Rafael Herrera and Sónia Marques welcome Giota Antonakaki, a Cisco leader in machine learning engineering, for an illuminating deep dive into a recent academic research shaping AI agent technology. Together, they unpack “The Illusion of Diminishing Returns: Measuring Long Horizon Execution in LLMs”, a paper challenging the common belief that scaling large language models (LLMs) results in only marginal gains.
 
The conversation explores fresh concepts like “long horizon” and “self-conditioning,” revealing how even small improvements in LLM step accuracy can dramatically boost performance in complex, multi-step tasks. Giota breaks down the difference between planning, reasoning, and execution in LLMs, and why reasoning-focused models outperform even the largest standard LLMs for long-running AI agents.
We also extend a special thank you to Akshit Sinha and his team of researchers for developing this month's paper. If you are interested in reading the paper yourself, please visit this link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09677.

🚨 This wasn't a tweak. It was an identity shift.
This is the shift that happened.
In this episode of Shift Happens, Jeff Edwards goes behind the scenes of the Cisco 360 Partner Program with Tim Coogan and Elisabeth DeDobbeleer to unpack the human story behind the biggest partner transformation in Cisco's history. Less framework, more truth. Less polish, more courage.
Why listen 🎧
🔄 From "partner-first" to partner identity - what had to change (and why it was uncomfortable)
🤝 Co-design at scale: humility, trust, and partners shaping the outcome
🚀 Durable growth decoded: simplicity, outcomes, and why this is only the beginning
This isn't about a program launch.
It's about reinvention, trust, and building the future-together. 🔥

Ian and Kat are joined this week by their white whale, Ian's mentor and Cisco's Vice President of Global Channel Marketing and Mid-Market/SMB, Stephen Tessitore. Stephen is on a mission to mentor 100 new leaders (he's WELL on his way), and shares his insights with us on how to find a mentor, how to be a mentor and how to come prepared to get the most out of the relationship.

Kat and Ian then spend the last 4 minutes roasting Ian for his Chipotle habits. Maybe something he can work on with a mentor?

If you want to learn more about Cisco's solutions for small and medium businesses (which we definitely did not talk about this week), check them out here: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/solutions/small-business/index.html#tabs-35d568e0ff-item-4bd7dc8124-tab

What does it take to redesign a partner incentive program after more than 20 years—without losing trust, predictability, or momentum?
In this episode of Shift Happens, host Jeff Edwards sits down with Fred Farges, Senior Director of Cisco’s Global Partner Incentive Program and a key architect of the Cisco 360 Partner Program, to unpack one of the most significant transformations in Cisco’s partner ecosystem.
They explore how market forces like AI, subscription-based revenue, and customer adoption are reshaping partner profitability—and why Cisco made the decision to co-design its future partner model with partners at global scale.
This conversation covers:
● Why legacy partner incentives had to evolve

● How Cisco 360 balances innovation with predictability

● What partners can expect at launch and beyond

● The role of growth, adoption, and lifecycle in long-term success

Whether you’re inside Cisco, part of the partner ecosystem, or leading change in enterprise technology, this episode offers a clear, candid look at how transformation happens.

Join us for a recap of some of 2025’s most notable Internet outages and incidents, with key learnings for ITOps teams to take into 2026.


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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
03:16 An Important Nuance
05:16 Global Impacts
07:44 Architecture and Failure Modes
10:05 When DNS Is The Culprit
13:05 The Importance of Looking at Combined Signals
15:54 On Configuration Change Issues
19:23 Key Takeaways

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For additional insights, check out the links below:

Blog: https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/the-top-internet-outages-of-2025-analyses-and-takeaways#google-cloud-incident?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep1_podcast?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep129_podcast

The Internet Outage Survival Kit: https://www.thousandeyes.com/resources/the-internet-outage-survival-kit?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep129_podcast

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Want to get in touch?

If you have questions, feedback, or guests you would like to see featured on the show, send us a note at [email protected]. Or follow us on LinkedIn or X.

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ABOUT THE INTERNET REPORT
This is The Internet Report, a podcast uncovering what’s working and what’s breaking on the Internet—and why.

Tune in to hear ThousandEyes’ Internet experts dig into some of the most interesting outage events from the past couple weeks, discussing what went awry—was it the Internet, or an application issue?

Plus, learn about the latest trends in ISP outages, cloud network outages, collaboration network outages, and more.

Catch all the episodes on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform:

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-report/id1506984526

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ADFvqAtgsbYwk4JiZFqHQ?si=00e9c4b53aff4d08&nd=1&dlsi=eab65c9ea39d4773

- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ciscopodcastnetwork/sets/the-internet-report

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCewXUwLMfn7Y69C6vGRVwyw