On this episode of Targeting AI in the Moment (AIM), the new weekly news podcast from TechTarget.com and AI Business, the three co-hosts chat about the Anthropic IPO and what it means for enterprise AI. They also examine what OpenAI model pricing means in the context of the “Chinese invasion” of low-cost, open-weight models.

AI news writer and podcast producer and host Esther Shittu, AI news and features writer Kinza Yasar and their editor, Shaun Sutner, report and analyze the news on TechTarget AI and offer more analysis, perspective and context in the news podcast series.

Kinza Yasar covers AI and emerging technology for TechTarget, with a focus on ethics, enterprise adoption, governance and business strategy. Before moving into journalism, she worked in IT and network support roles, giving her a systems-level perspective on how enterprise technologies are built, deployed and managed. Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget covering AI technology. Shaun Sutner is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience and 12 years at TechTarget as an editor and writer.

There’s networking for AI, and then there’s AI for networking, and Joe Vaccaro, senior vice president and general manager at Cisco Network Platform and ThousandEyes, breaks down the distinction on the latest Targeting AI podcast from TechTarget. According to Vaccaro, AI for networking assists network operations, while networking for AI builds resilient infrastructure for AI workloads and traffic. Vaccaro also outlines how agentic AI can help operate increasingly complex networks. He discusses the controls needed to make those agents trustworthy, from deterministic workflows and digital-twin validation to business-context guardrails and agent security.

In this episode, we discuss how:

• Cisco’s agentic loop moves through sensing, diagnosing, planning, validating, and acting.
• Cisco’s Deep Network Model and an ensemble of Cisco, small-language, and frontier models are presented as ways to apply network-specific knowledge and capabilities.
• Industrial and IoT environments bring physical AI workloads such as factory robots and vision systems, creating demand for focused models that can operate close to the edge in near real time.
• Cisco Cloud Control is a shared context layer for business intent, security policies, observability objectives and standard operating procedures.
• Agent security includes non-human identities with scoped roles and permissions, as well as protections against risks such as model jailbreaking.

To dive deeper into topics about AI and networking, check out TechTarget AI from Informa TechTarget, and please subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date on the most important AI news.

To watch video clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeonTech.

References:

Cisco embeds agentic AI across customer journey

Cisco advances AI infrastructure services at Cisco Live

AI-native networking vs. traditional network automation

From internal enablement and training to product features such as MCP and Smart Assist, work management vendor Smartsheet is using AI across its company. Marcus McKay Fleisch, the project management and work collaboration platform’s professional services enablement director, joins TechTarget’s Targeting AI podcast to discuss how his team is moving beyond basic adoption metrics to focus on workflow-level impact, security guardrails, and measurable business outcomes. He dives into how AI is changing daily work for Smartsheet users, why shadow AI shows up when internal tooling is missing, and how IT, product, security, and enablement must work together to make AI useful without introducing new risks.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Smartsheet’s focus on natural language access using MCP (model context protocol) and Smart Assist.
• The biggest everyday benefit for users is automation inside real workflows, such as checking due tasks, prioritizing work, and completing updates with AI-assisted actions.
• Enablement at Smartsheet goes beyond training and includes behavior change, tooling access, security review, and close coordination with IT.
• Smartsheet’s main large language model tools.
• How Smartsheet is shifting its AI adoption strategy.
• Shadow AI as a signal that employees need approved tools or capabilities that the company does not yet offer internally.
• How Smartsheet treats security as a human and organizational problem as much as a technical one, with quarterly security training, threat modeling, and tighter controls around features such as browser and computer use.

To dive more into topics about generative AI-driven software, check out TechTarget AI & Emerging Tech, and please subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date on the most important AI news.

To watch video clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeonTech.

References:

• Build vs. buy: the AI agent landscape for businesses
• How enterprises should combat the growing shadow AI problem
• AI changes the ROI equation. Here’s how some have found success