Jitu Patel says AI will create 70% of Cisco products by 2027, employees need to upskill to stay relevant
Cisco is rapidly moving towards an AI-first future, with the company aiming to have most of its products manufactured entirely by AI within the next 3 years. As AI plays a bigger role in development, Cisco is urging engineers to rethink skills, judgment and security to stay relevant.
Cisco is preparing for a future where AI forms the core of software creation, and its leadership wants employees to move quickly to keep pace. Jitu Patel, president and chief product officer of Cisco, announced at X that the company is aiming for a point where most of its products are written entirely by AI, while human engineers focus on decisions, security, and outcomes rather than just writing code.
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Patel said Cisco has already passed an important milestone. “At Cisco, we’ve shipped our first product written entirely by AI at this point. Congratulations to the AI Defense team. 100 percent of the code in AI Defense is written by AI,” he said, describing it as an early sign of how software development is changing inside the company.
Jitu Patel says AI will create 70% of Cisco’s products, employees must upskill to stay relevant
However, this push goes far beyond a single product. Patel said Cisco hopes to ship at least half a dozen products by the end of 2026 that are written entirely by AI. The long-term goal is even more ambitious. “By the end of 2027, we will aim to have 70% of our products written with 100% AI,” he said, adding that these products should be superior in quality, performance, usability, adoption and real business outcomes for customers.
Although AI speeds up development, Patel asked teams not to equate speed with value. “Just because you can build it quickly doesn’t mean it’s worth shipping. Build a new mental model,” he told employees, urging them to be “intellectually honest” about their skills and learn quickly if they want to remain relevant. “The rules of the game have changed faster than anyone anticipated. Don’t fight it. Adapt to the new reality,” he said.
The main part of Patel’s message focused on how the role of engineers is evolving. He suggested that success in an AI-powered world will be defined less by how much code a person writes and more by how well he or she thinks and makes decisions. “In the new world more than ever, the next generation of engineers will define success very differently,” Patel wrote. According to him, that success will depend on judgment, instinct, clarity about the most important problem to be solved, good interest and passion for results.
Patel also emphasized cost awareness and security and argued that engineers must understand unit economics and treat security as a non-negotiable priority as AI plays a bigger role. Managing digital agents will become a core skill, he said, with teams supported by AI systems that work proactively and change the way collaboration happens inside organizations.
Acknowledging the personal impact of this change, Patel said adopting the new model will not be easy. “It will be counterproductive. It will be frustrating. It will require sacrifice. It will be ridiculously hard. It will be scary. Yet it will be exciting,” he wrote, describing the change as demanding and full of opportunity.
