Cisco’s president Jeetu Patel mandates AI for all developers, aiming for half a dozen AI-coded products by 2026. This shift to spec-driven development sees human teams shrink, with AI agents tripling output. While embracing AI’s potential, Cisco is investing heavily in security to prevent rogue agents, urging developers to master AI to stay relevant.

Cisco’s president Jeetu Patel has sent a strong signal about where the company is headed—AI won’t be optional for its developers, it’ll be the baseline. Speaking to Euronews Next at an AI Summit in Amsterdam, Patel revealed that Cisco has already built its first product using 100 percent AI-generated code, with no human-written lines in the mix. By the end of 2026, he expects at least half a dozen more products to follow the same path.“We won’t have developers at Cisco who don’t choose AI as a core habit,” Patel said. “Don’t worry about AI taking your job, but worry about someone using AI better than you definitely taking your job.”

Fewer humans, more AI agents, and triple the output

The shift isn’t just philosophical. Cisco says it’s moving from traditional agile development to what it calls spec-driven development, a model where a team of eight humans shrinks to three, with five AI agents filling in. The result, according to Patel, is triple the output.These AI agents aren’t simple autocomplete tools. Cisco envisions them as digital co-workers that plan tasks, solve problems, and operate with minimal human oversight. Patel even pushed back on the popular “human-in-the-loop” framing, arguing the mindset should flip to “AI is in every loop.”That said, human coders still have a role—they’ll be the ones reviewing what the AI writes.

‘Background checks’ for AI agents that could go rogue

Patel wasn’t all optimism, though. He flagged AI safety as something that keeps him up at night, comparing the onboarding of AI agents to hiring employees.“These agents need to get the background checks done, just like you get a background check done for an employee,” he said.Cisco is investing billions in security infrastructure to tackle two sides of the same coin—protecting AI agents from external attacks, and protecting the world from agents that “go rogue.”His advice to developers worried about job security? “Don’t worry about AI taking your job, but worry about someone using AI better than you definitely taking your job.”