Cisco built its own AI assistant: 96,000 users at about $10 a month each

Cisco's in-house AI assistant had more than 96,000 users in the first quarter of 2026, with 90% employee adoption, and costs the company about $10 a user a month, chief automation officer Srini Namineni told [CIO.com](https://www.cio.com/article/4189683/ciscos-in-house-ai-assistant-is-a-jack-of-all-trades.html) in a feature published on 3 July 2026. The company says the tool saves engineers an average of six hours a week and other employees five.

Why Cisco built instead of blocking

When ChatGPT and similar consumer tools arrived in late 2022 and early 2023, Cisco's leaders debated banning them because staff could paste company data into them. "Instead of blocking it, let us give them a secure alternative," Namineni said. The project started in late 2023 and has been open to employees since 2024. It began with models from Azure OpenAI and Google Gemini; Namineni says a new one can be added within a couple of weeks.

• Staff use one tool for general questions, coding help and HR tasks such as booking leave without logging in to another system.
• A feature called My Projects lets them upload their own datasets to secured OneDrive folders and ask questions of them, and the assistant can search internal Cisco documents.

The $10, worked through

At about $10 a user a month, 96,000 users come to about $960,000 a month, or about $11.5 million a year (960,000 × 12). Microsoft 365 Copilot lists at $30 a user a month on [Microsoft's pricing page](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/pricing/enterprise), read for our [tools tracker](https://modelsatwork.news/tools) on 14 November 2026; the same 96,000 users at list price would be $2.88 million a month. What a company of Cisco's size would pay Microsoft is not public.

The article does not say what the $10 includes. Model usage bills, hosting and the salaries of the team that builds the assistant are not broken out, so it cannot be compared like for like with a licence.

The hours, the headcount and the catch

The five and six hours a week are "according to the company", with no baseline, period or method. The only measurement described is internal polling: 79% of employees believe the assistant saves them time, 72% say it raises productivity and 71% say it improves the quality of their work. Five hours a week is about 21.7 hours a month (5 × 52 ÷ 12). UKG, which also gave AI tools to its whole workforce, has published figures that come to [0.6 to 1.7 hours a person a month](https://modelsatwork.news/article/ukg-12000-employee-built-ai-agents-hours-saved-24000-then-8500-a-month-under-two-hours-per-person), also without a method: two self-reported company-wide figures that differ by 13 to 36 times.

The user count is larger than the payroll. Cisco had approximately 82,400 employees on 25 July 2026, according to its [annual report](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/858877/000085887726000132/csco-20260725.htm) filed on 2 September 2026. CIO.com does not say whether the 96,000 users include contractors, or what the 90% is a share of.

On the people side, the article does not say whether any role changed, where the saved hours went or who checks the assistant's output. Namineni said of handing work to it: "I am not ready to let go of 100% control unless it's a low-value activity where I'm OK with it making a mistake because it does make mistakes." The annual report records a restructuring plan announced in the quarter to July 2026, with charges of up to $1 billion, "to invest in key growth opportunities including silicon, optics, security and AI"; the filing does not mention the assistant.

Amy Loomis, a group vice president at the analyst firm IDC quoted by CIO.com, said the design reflects Cisco's size and engineering capacity, and that other companies can copy the decisions without the build: give staff a governed tool before unapproved ones spread, and keep a person accountable for what the assistant does.

What to do if you run an AI programme

• Before the next renewal, ask finance for your all-in AI assistant cost per active user per month: licences plus usage bills, divided by people who used it in the last 30 days. Set it against Cisco's $10 and the $30 list price.
• If engineering proposes building your own, ask for the price with the build and support team's salaries included. Cisco's figure does not say whether it includes them.
• IT: if you still block consumer AI tools without offering an approved one, name the approved one this quarter.