Cisco partners with OpenAI to boost AI coding innovation with Codex

OpenAI has introduced a research preview of Codex, an AI coding agent now accessible through ChatGPT, designed to independently navigate codebases, implement and test code changes, and propose pull requests for review.

Cisco has confirmed its role as an early design partner for Codex, working to evaluate the agent within its product portfolio and providing feedback to OpenAI to help guide real-world applications.

Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco, outlined the significance of the collaboration, highlighting its potential impact on productivity and innovation. "We think we're on the verge of one of the single largest transformations in product innovation velocity in history," Patel stated.

Patel expressed his perspective on AI's approach to human labour, saying, "I am fond of saying that the real power of AI is not to replace humans in the workforce, but instead to 10X the productivity, creativity, and potential of the human workforce. This doesn't mean that some jobs won't go away or be changed forever. That would be naive. Instead, it simply means that by going all-in on working with and developing AI the total 'throughput' of humanity will go further than we could ever dream. In practical terms, that means solving problems like cancer treatment, green energy, global food supply, and so much more. If today's 8 billion humans had the productivity of 80 billion just imagine what we could do?"

He underlined the added value AI like Codex could bring to software engineering, noting its broader implications. "This effect will impact every industry, but software engineering is incredibly high-leverage. Being able to develop, de-bug, improve and manage code with AI is a force-multiplier for every company in every industry. For a technology company as big and diverse as Cisco? The potential is extraordinary," Patel said.

Patel also discussed Cisco's vision for supporting AI-driven work, stating, "At Cisco, we are building the core infrastructure of the AI era. As new solutions like Codex exemplify, the future of AI will be agentic. We envision a future where billions of AI agents are working together harmoniously on our behalf, around the globe and around the clock."

He addressed the implications for technology infrastructure, emphasising, "This will profoundly transform and redefine the architectural assumptions the industry has relied on. Paramount to these, is that Agentic AI will be network-constrained. Agents will communicate within and across data centers, and across every place we live, work, and connect with customers— all at incredible speed, scale. and efficiency."

Patel added, "None of this will work without ultra-fast, low-latency, energy-efficient, and highly secure networks. Cisco not only builds those networks, but an incredible array of products and solutions that today are being used by everyone from the world's governments, cloud hyperscalers, and global service providers, to Global 2000 enterprises and small businesses."

He pointed to the pressure to deliver on a large number of internal ideas, stating, "It's not an exaggeration to say that we have a massive library of ideas on how to make our products faster, better, more resilient and more powerful. I get pitched by brilliant Cisco people literally everyday. But like everyone else, we don't have endless resources or time to get even a fraction of what we dream up done."

Patel positioned AI as core to Cisco's developer strategy, saying, "As an AI Infrastructure company, we must attract the best developers in the world to Cisco. That can only happen if they can do their life's best work with us. We want Cisco to be a company where engineers have the best tooling in the world and are empowered to fundamentally reimagine how they write code. Partnering with OpenAI, and specifically the Codex project, is core to this mission."

"I couldn't be more excited for what our talented engineers and product thinkers will accomplish, and I'm proud to be a leader at a company with the world class technical talent and scale to make such a meaningful contribution to the future of AI coding and software development. The future is coming faster than we think, so there's no time to waste," Patel said.