For the past two years, most of the talk around AI has been about data centres, powerful computer chips, and shiny new chatbot models. But as Australian businesses move from simple chatbots to autonomous AI agents that do real work across the company, the real challenge has moved.
The make-or-break factor for AI success isn’t in the cloud. It’s in the local campus and branch networks connecting your everyday workplace.
In a recent study by Cisco and Foundry surveying 202 Australian IT leaders, we found that our local networks are running into a wall:
- Only 17% of Australian organisations believe their networks are fully prepared for AI
- Nearly three-quarters of Australian organisations (74%) expect AI to push networks to capacity
- 66% of Australian organisations are more confident in their AI strategy than the infrastructure supporting it.
- 90% say budget constraints are slowing network modernisation despite AI accelerating demand.
- 64% say AI performance depends on bandwidth availability, while 60% cite network latency as a critical factor.
Humans pause. AI agents never sleep.
Why are networks feeling the pinch? It comes down to how humans work versus how AI agents work.
When a human uses a computer, traffic is bursty. You type a message, pause to think, read an email, and take your time. While you think, the network rests.
AI agents don’t pause. When an agent is ‘thinking,’ it is constantly accessing multiple data sources, pulling live information, and coordinating with other agents in the background. Add the fact that the number of agents is expanding beyond the number of humans, and we can see how it creates a steady, heavy baseline of traffic that never turns off.
At Cisco, we see this firsthand. Through our internal AI platform, Circuit, we have rolled out AI agents to help every systems engineer across Australia. When every employee has multiple digital teammates working alongside them, the demands on our local networks change permanently.
Stop ‘painting the Harbour Bridge’
When capacity warnings go off, many businesses assume they just need to spend more money buying new hardware. But the companies doing best aren’t just outspending everyone else, they are getting more out of what they already own.
A lot of teams still purchase infrastructure and configure each item separately by hand. That doesn’t work anymore, especially when it comes to ensuring their infrastructure is running the latest most secure software. Upgrading networks manually today is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge: by the time you finish one section or upgrade, more are in the pipeline and you’re starting again.
The real hurdle isn’t just technology; it’s people and process. We spent decades teaching engineers to configure network boxes one by one. Today, we need to treat the network like any modern software system: automated, centralised, and easy to update from a single dashboard.
Three simple steps for IT leaders
- Use automation first: Stop manual box-by-box setups. Use centralized platforms to push updates, security policies, and performance settings across all switches and routers at once.
- Upgrade workplace Wi-Fi: In Australia, 44% of businesses are still using Wi-Fi 5 or older. Moving to Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 is the fastest way to clear workplace bottlenecks for mobile AI tools.
- Secure the new traffic: With 80% of leaders noting that AI expands the security attack surface, having real-time visibility into what AI agents are doing keeps your innovation safe and trusted.
We don’t have to choose between moving fast with AI and keeping our systems secure. By automating and modernising the networks we already have, Australian organisations can give their teams—and their new AI agents—the reliable foundation they need to succeed.
