Cisco AI Readiness Index 2025: Realizing the Value of AI
TL;DR
The third annual edition of Cisco’s readiness index, announced on 14 October 2025. This page rests on the press release and Cisco’s web pages; the full report was not accessible.
- About 13% Pacesetters, three years running. “A small but consistent group of companies surveyed — the ‘Pacesetters,’ about 13% of organizations for the last three years — outperform their peers across every measure of AI value.” Cisco’s assessment-tool page gives the 2025 split as 13% / 36% / 48% / 3% (Pacesetters / Chasers / Followers / Laggards; model-extracted).
- A new meaning for the same group. In 2024 the group was “fully ready to capture AI’s potential”. In 2025 the release describes it by outcomes: Pacesetters are “4x more likely to move pilots into production and 50% more likely to see measurable value”. The score bands are unchanged (Pacesetter = score of 86 or more, per the methodology page).
- Pacesetters report more results. “90% report gains in profitability, productivity, and innovation, compared with ~60% overall.” 62% have “a mature, repeatable innovation process” for scaling use cases, against 13% overall.
- Agents and “AI Infrastructure Debt”. 83% plan to deploy AI agents and nearly 40% expect them to work alongside employees within a year. 54% say their networks cannot scale for complexity or data volume. The release coins “AI Infrastructure Debt” for deferred upgrades and underfunded architecture.
- Sample: “over 8,000 AI leaders across 30 markets and 26 industries”, at organisations with over 500 employees.
Key data
| Measure | Pacesetters | Overall | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of organisations | about 13% | — | press release |
| 2025 split: Chasers / Followers / Laggards | — | 36 / 48 / 3% | assessment-tool page (WebFetch) |
| Defined AI roadmap | 99% | 58% | press release |
| Change-management plan | 91% | 35% | press release |
| AI is the top investment priority | 79% | 24% | press release |
| Networks fully flexible, scale instantly | 71% | 15% | press release |
| Mature, repeatable innovation process for scaling use cases | 62% | 13% | press release |
| Use cases already finalised | 77% | 18% | press release |
| Gains in profitability, productivity and innovation | 90% | ~60% | press release |
| Fully equipped to control and secure AI agents | 75% | 31% | press release |
| Plan to deploy AI agents | — | 83% | press release |
Method and definitions
- Sample. The release describes it twice: “over 8,000 AI leaders across 30 markets and 26 industries” and “a double-blind survey of 8,000 senior IT and business leaders responsible for AI strategy at organizations with over 500 employees across 26 industries.” The 2024 edition surveyed 7,985 “senior business leaders” in 18 industries; the respondent pool and the industry classification changed.
- Score. Cisco’s methodology page (model-extracted) gives the frame: an independent firm runs the survey double-blind; 49 indicators across six pillars (Strategy, Infrastructure, Data, Governance, Talent, Culture); indicators scored 100% for full deployment and 25–50% for partial; pillars weighted “by its relative importance”. Bands: Pacesetters 86+, Chasers 61–85, Followers 31–60, Laggards 0–30. The 2025 pillar weights, the indicator list, the vendor and the fieldwork dates are not on the pages read. The 2024 report published its pillar weights; whether 2025 kept them is unknown.
- “Value”. The release says value is “captured for the first time” in this edition, but the pages read do not define the value measures. They appear to be self-reported gains (profitability, productivity, innovation, measurable value).
Scope and reliability
- Vendor survey, self-report, and here the readiness score and the value questions come from the same respondents. A readiness score that includes having impact metrics (95% of Pacesetters track impact) partly builds in the “value” it is then compared with.
- A flat share needs a method to read. “About 13%” for three years can mean the top group is not growing, or that the bands keep it about the same size. With the 2025 method not public, the pages do not settle which.
- Not verified against the report. All figures here come from the press release, which was read in full, and from WebFetch extracts of cisco.com pages. The full PDF (
cisco-ai-readiness-index-2025-realizing-the-value-of-ai.pdf) was not read. - The May 2026 CEO study is not a new index. Cisco’s page “How CEOs see AI in 2026” (2,511 CEOs of firms with 250+ employees, fieldwork January 2026, run by Opinion Matters; model-extracted) repeats “the top 13%“. Its Pacesetter figures (77% building data-centre capacity, 95% with impact metrics) match the 2025 Index release. It is a separate CEO survey quoting the 2025 Index group, not a fourth Index measurement.
Dynamic-capabilities reading
digital-transforming/improving-digital-maturity: a banded readiness score, now tied by Cisco to value outcomes; the edition is about how far organisations have come in improving digital maturity.digital-seizing/balancing-digital-portfolios: the release’s headline differentiator is scaling use cases. Pacesetters are “4x more likely to move pilots into production”, have finalised their use cases (77% vs 18%) and track their impact.contextual/internal-barriers: “AI Infrastructure Debt” names the barrier: 64% struggle to centralise data, 26% have robust GPU capacity, fewer than one in three can detect or prevent AI-specific threats.
How it connects
- 2024-11-19-cisco-ai-readiness-index-2024: the previous edition, with the full method and the 14% → 13% series.
- 2026-04-28-mittri-cisco-ai-enabled-enterprise: the sponsored MITTRI report’s 13% comes from the 2024 edition, not from this one.
- ai-maturity-measurement-comparison and enterprise-ai-adoption: the Cisco bar in the thread’s cross-walk.
- ai-agents: 83% plan to deploy agents; 75% of Pacesetters vs 31% overall say they can control and secure them.
- BCG, The Widening AI Value Gap: published two weeks earlier, it also splits off a small leading group (5% “future-built”) and compares it on value.
What was actually ingested
The press release, read in full (raw: raw/articles/2025-10-14-cisco-press-ai-readiness-index-2025-most-ai-ready-companies-outpace-peers.md). Four cisco.com pages (the 2025 landing page, the methodology page, the assessment tool and the microsite) and the 2026 CEO-study page were read with WebFetch. WebFetch returns a model-written extraction, so only short quotes are verbatim (raw: raw/articles/2025-10-14-cisco-ai-readiness-index-2025-web-pages.md). The full 2025 report PDF was not read: curl gets HTTP 403 from cisco.com, and the file is over WebFetch’s 10 MB limit.
Linked entities and concepts
Entities: Cisco.
Concepts and threads: enterprise-ai-adoption, ai-maturity-measurement-comparison, ai-agents.
Dangling (single-source mention, deferred): Jeetu Patel (Cisco president and chief product officer, quoted), Opinion Matters (fieldwork firm of the 2026 CEO study).