Doing AI Is Easy. Doing It Well Is Hard.

Doing AI Is Easy. Doing It Well Is Hard.

AI has made writing code dramatically easier. Building great software is another story. Recorded live at Cisco Live, Raj Chopra, Cisco's Chief Product Officer for Security, joins WWT's Brian Ortbals and Joe Berger to explore what it really takes to become an AI-native organization. As AI changes the way software gets built, engineering becomes less about producing code and more about solving meaningful problems, applying domain expertise, and creating the right guardrails for systems that can reason and act on their own. This isn't just a conversation about AI-assisted development. It's about how organizations, teams, and leaders need to rethink the way they build, secure, and scale software in the years ahead. When code becomes cheap, judgment becomes the competitive advantage. Support for this episode provided by: Cognition [https://www.wwt.com/partner/cognition/overview] More about this week's guests: Raj Chopra [https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/executives/raj-chopra.html] is Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer for Cisco Security, where he leads product strategy across Cisco's security portfolio. A cybersecurity industry veteran, Raj previously held leadership roles at Proofpoint and was part of the founding team at Netskope, helping pioneer the Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) category. Throughout his career, he has launched market-leading security products used by enterprises around the world. Brian Ortbals [https://www.wwt.com/profile/brian-ortbals] is Senior Vice President of Global Solutions and Architecture at WWT, where he leads teams spanning AI, cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, and digital transformation. Since joining WWT in 1999, Brian has helped shape many of the company's technology initiatives, including the growth of its Advanced Technology Center. He works closely with customers to solve complex technology challenges and accelerate enterprise AI adoption. Joe Berger [https://www.wwt.com/profile/joe-berger/bio] leads WWT's Digital Experiences practice, helping organizations transform how people work, build, and interact with technology through AI. His team focuses on AI-native engineering, employee and customer experience, application development, and data platforms. A recognized technology leader and speaker, Joe works closely with leading partners including Microsoft, Cisco, NVIDIA, and Glean to help enterprises turn AI into measurable business outcomes. The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.  Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground [https://www.wwt.com/atc/ai-proving-ground/overview]. The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others. Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC) [https://www.wwt.com/service/atc/overview], this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.

The Real AI Advantage Isn't What You Think

Everybody says they're data-driven. But according to a Harvard Business Review study, only 7% of enterprises believe their data is actually ready for AI. Not agents. Not advanced machine learning. Just AI. Everyone wants the outcome. Far fewer have done the years of work required to make AI useful in the first place. But Matt Pappas [https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-pappas-4391a818] has. As Chief Data Officer at Kiewit, he's spent more than 15 years building production machine learning systems that influence billion-dollar decisions, risk assessments, and project forecasts. His team deployed its first company-wide production algorithm in 2017, years before most organizations had even formalized a data strategy. This isn't a conversation about chasing the next breakthrough. It's about what "AI-ready" actually means, why data science remains a craft, how Kiewit uses machine learning to make better decisions, and why Matt believes technology should solve business problems instead of going looking for them. The companies pulling ahead aren't necessarily the ones with the newest models. They're the ones who started taking data seriously long before everyone else had to. The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.  Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground [https://www.wwt.com/atc/ai-proving-ground/overview]. The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others. Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC) [https://www.wwt.com/service/atc/overview], this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.

Everybody Wants AI. Who's Paying for It?

For years, technology leaders could afford a little inefficiency. A system that stayed in place longer than it should. Infrastructure that nobody got around to optimizing. Assets that quietly blended into the background. AI is changing the math. As organizations invest in more intelligence, more automation, and more ambitious digital strategies, every decision about infrastructure, operations, and capacity suddenly matters a little more. Not because the future is out of reach, but because the opportunity is now big enough to be worth chasing. In this episode, WWT's Mark Wall argues that some of the most valuable AI investments aren't new at all. They're hiding in plain sight. The conversation explores why the next generation of enterprise leaders will think differently about efficiency, not as a cost-cutting exercise, but as a way to unlock growth, accelerate innovation, and create room for what comes next. Because the companies that get the most from AI may not be the ones with the biggest budgets. They may be the ones that know how to create capacity for the future. Support for this episode provided by: Riverbed More about this week's guest: Mark Wall [https://www.wwt.com/profile/mark-wall/bio] is Managing Director of Automation at World Wide Technology, where he helps enterprises turn complexity into opportunity. With more than 20 years of experience across networking, application services, automation, and infrastructure, Mark works with organizations to modernize operations, drive innovation, and build the foundations needed for the next generation of AI-powered business. Mark's top pick: Claude Mythos and the Remediation Velocity Gap [https://www.wwt.com/blog/claude-mythos-and-the-remediation-velocity-gap] The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.  Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground [https://www.wwt.com/atc/ai-proving-ground/overview]. The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others. Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC) [https://www.wwt.com/service/atc/overview], this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.

Your AI Agent Doesn't Sleep. Are You Ready for That? NVIDIA Answers.

The most important shift in AI isn't better chatbots. It's the arrival of agents that can work independently. Give them a task before bed and they may finish it before you wake up. They can write code, access tools, analyze information and make decisions without a human in the loop. The productivity upside is enormous but so is the potential risk. In this episode, NVIDIA's Dave Barry breaks down what enterprises are learning about autonomous agents, from secure runtimes and policy controls to observability, governance, and limiting blast radius when things go wrong. The technology is getting more capable by the week. The real challenge is making sure it stays pointed in the right direction. Support for this episode provided by: CrowdStrike [https://www.wwt.com/partner/crowdstrike/overview] More about this week's guest: Dave Barry is a Senior Solutions Architect and Data Scientist at NVIDIA. His team focuses on NVIDIA AI software for Agentic AI and accelerated computing. While his background is rooted in computer vision, he enjoys tackling problems across every corner of AI.  The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.  Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground [https://www.wwt.com/atc/ai-proving-ground/overview]. The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others. Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC) [https://www.wwt.com/service/atc/overview], this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.

Cisco Live! 2026: AI Is Taking Away the Luxury of Time

The most interesting thing at Cisco Live! 2026 wasn't a product announcement. It was a shift in tone. For years, technology leaders have had the luxury of studying change before responding to it. They could build a roadmap, socialize a strategy, secure a budget, and move forward on their own timeline. AI is taking that luxury away. Across nearly every conversation this week, the same tension kept surfacing. The technology is improving faster than organizations are adapting to it. Security teams are watching the window between vulnerability and exploit shrink dramatically. Infrastructure teams are preparing for a world where software doesn't just serve users, but acts on their behalf. And leaders are being forced to rethink operating models that were designed for a much slower era. In this episode, WWT leaders and industry experts explore what that shift means in practice. From AI-driven security threats and agentic operations to token economics and infrastructure modernization, the conversation focuses less on the technology itself and more on the consequences of its success. Because the question is no longer whether AI will change the enterprise. The question is how quickly the enterprise can change itself. Support for this episode provided by: Cohesity [https://www.wwt.com/partner/cohesity] The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.  Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground [https://www.wwt.com/atc/ai-proving-ground/overview]. The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others. Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC) [https://www.wwt.com/service/atc/overview], this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.