Bob Cicero, Global Director of Workplace Experience at Cisco, Balancing 90,000 AI Agents and the Flexible Workforce

In August, Cisco gave 90,000 employees an AI agent. Bob Cicero expects each of them to run ten before long. When digital workers take over the focus work, what's left for humans is collaboration, and that changes what the office is for.

Bob has spent two decades at Cisco building workplaces that sense, reason, and act. The room knows it's broken before you walk in. The agent reroutes your meeting and puts a blue dot on your phone. Employees, freelancers, guests, and agents all get the same tech, and it just works.

We're building Human Cloud for the other half of that shift: so companies can find and deploy the flexible talent, human or agent, that their teams now work alongside.

In this episode, Bob Cicero shares:

• What happens when 90,000 employees each get a digital worker, and why everyone becomes a leader when they manage agents
• The office has to earn the commute: why Cisco never mandated a return, and how quiet reset rooms and neurodiverse design in London pull people in
• A workplace that senses, reasons, and acts: agents that spot a broken room, reroute your meeting, and guide you to a new one
• Why employees, contractors, fractional leaders, and guests should all get the same experience the moment they walk in
• Your first 90 days: the space data already sitting in IT, and why Cisco's real estate team reports to HR

Bob Cicero is Global Director of Workplace Experience at Cisco. An electrical engineer by training, he has spent two decades at Cisco designing workplaces where people, space, and technology work together.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About Human Cloud: We help companies find and deploy the right flexible talent solutions in minutes instead of months. We automate discovery, compliance, and orchestration across 1,000+ workforce platforms — so business teams move fast, procurement teams stay in control, and rogue contractor spend turns into a strategic advantage.

Proudly presented by Safeguard Global. The employer of record that lets you hire, pay, and manage teams in 187 countries without the risk. Meet Safeguard Global on Human Cloud.