As AI reshapes job roles and automation redefines workflows, organizations are underneath stress to constantly construct, validate, and apply new expertise at scale. Most expertise pipelines merely can’t sustain: almost half of IT leaders already report {that a} lack of AI expertise is slowing progress.
At Study with Cisco, it’s our objective to make IT expertise accessible to everybody: from college students and entry-level professionals to consultants with years of expertise. So it’s extraordinarily gratifying to see that IDC MarketScape has positioned Cisco as a Chief within the 2025–2026 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Companies in North America and a Chief within the 2025 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Companies in Europe.
Thanks to everybody at Cisco and at our companions for making this recognition doable. As AI modifications the way in which we work, we’re extra dedicated than ever to offering entry to in-demand expertise to learners throughout the globe.
Studying as mission-critical infrastructure
“The arrival of AI and different rising applied sciences provides a brand new dimension of complexity to an ecosystem already careworn by widening IT expertise shortages,” in line with IDC MarketScape for North America IT Coaching Companies. The report continues: “IDC initiatives that by the tip of subsequent 12 months, expertise shortages may price the worldwide economic system as much as US$5.5 trillion in misplaced income, product delays, high quality points, and impaired competitiveness.” Workforce growth is not a nice-to-have. It’s foundational infrastructure for competitiveness in an AI-driven economic system.
At Cisco, we’ve all the time believed that know-how alone doesn’t drive transformation—individuals do. That perception is mirrored in our end-to-end studying ecosystem, designed to assist people, groups, and enterprises construct expertise that matter immediately whereas getting ready for what’s subsequent.
Proper now, which means getting ready groups to work with AI. The World Financial Discussion board predicts that by 2030, 39 % of employees’ core expertise will change. That applies to everybody, not simply individuals in ICT and even ICT-adjacent roles. And naturally, the dominant driver of that shift in expertise is AI and technological change.
A generational problem
Our capacity to fulfill this want for reskilling—each for people and for enterprises—may have implications for generations. At Study with Cisco, we’re addressing the problem head-on.
Cisco Networking Academy’s Introduction to Trendy AI, now out there in 12 languages, is already one in every of our hottest programs. The NetAcad group can be releasing a whole suite of studying referred to as “Apply AI.” The primary module exhibits tips on how to use AI-driven thematic evaluation to raised perceive buyer suggestions. The following module clearly teaches anybody to make use of AI to put in writing and replace a resume. Additional programs and the complete Apply AI curriculum will likely be introduced at Cisco Stay Amsterdam.
We’re additionally seeing thrilling traction with our AI Enterprise Practitioner Studying Path, out there on Cisco U. This Studying Path helps professionals in any respect ranges, in all industries, construct foundational AI expertise and lead accountable adoption of AI by strategic use and a spread of enterprise functions.
ICT employees can count on even better modifications. In 2024, the primary report from the AI-Enabled Workforce Consortium discovered that 90 % of ICT-related roles will expertise excessive or reasonable ranges of transformation from AI. The second report, issued only a 12 months later, discovered that 78 % of ICT-related job roles had been already being reworked.
We’re remodeling our certifications portfolio simply as shortly. We’re updating current coursework and certifications to include new, in-demand expertise, and we’re including new studying and certifications to show and validate AI-specific expertise. These embody:
- The Cisco AI Infrastructure Specialist, which lies throughout the CCNP Knowledge Heart certification monitor. It allows learners to construct and validate expertise in deploying, migrating, and working AI options on Cisco knowledge middle infrastructure, in addition to in monitoring and troubleshooting.
- The AI Technical Practitioner certification focuses on synthetic intelligence and machine studying workloads, serving to technical professionals develop into AI-ready and efficiently embed AI into their workflows.
- The CCDE-AI Infrastructure specialization permits knowledgeable networking professionals to validate their capacity to design, provision, and optimize networks and compute energy for immediately’s AI workloads. It encompasses information of AI and machine studying, in addition to concerns regarding networks, safety, {hardware}, and the surroundings.
We’ll proceed to make these expertise out there by our linked, multiplatform ecosystem:
- Cisco Networking Academy
- Cisco U.
- Cisco Studying Community
- A globally acknowledged certification program
Collectively, these platforms assist roughly 7 million learners every year and greater than 28 million learners worldwide since inception, spanning foundational digital literacy by expert-level mastery.
Personalised, AI-driven studying at world scale
As AI transforms how work will get finished, it’s additionally redefining how individuals study.
By Cisco U., learners can establish talent gaps, obtain tailor-made content material, and monitor progress over time—shifting studying from reactive coaching to proactive expertise growth.
From GenAI-powered assessments and adaptive observe exams to dynamic content material updates, Cisco is embedding intelligence straight into the educational expertise—whereas persevering with to pair know-how with knowledgeable instruction, mentorship, and neighborhood assist.
Studying by doing: Arms-on expertise that mirrors actuality
Cisco’s ecosystem is constructed round real-world functions, getting ready learners with job-ready expertise. We’re emphasizing project-based studying—corresponding to that present in our Knowledge Science Necessities with Python course, which was not too long ago highlighted in a white paper launched on the World Financial Discussion board.
Throughout our portfolio, learners have interaction with digital labs, hardware-based distant labs, reasonable simulations, Seize the Flag challenges, and project-based experiences that mirror enterprise environments. They will construct, safe, automate, and troubleshoot networks utilizing the identical instruments and eventualities they’ll encounter on the job.
This experiential method extends to world and regional occasions corresponding to Cisco Stay, hackathons, and expert-moderated research teams — serving to learners construct not simply expertise, however confidence, credibility, and neighborhood.
Main the way forward for IT studying
In an period the place the flexibility to constantly study is the final word aggressive benefit, we imagine IDC MarketScape’s recognition reinforces what we see each day: expertise are the muse of innovation, resilience, and financial progress.
At Cisco, we stay dedicated to empowering learners, companions, and prospects throughout North America, Europe, and past with the information and hands-on expertise they should lead in an AI-powered world—immediately and into the longer term.
As a result of when individuals thrive, know-how transforms.
The IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Companies analyzes IT coaching corporations with portfolios which are applicable to organizations contemplating important digital and AI transformation initiatives.
The inclusion standards embody:
- A breadth of choices
- Dimension and breadth of choices that may considerably contribute to transformation
- initiatives
- Vital know-how experience that’s necessary to transformation initiatives
IDC MarketScape: European IT Coaching Companies 2025 Vendor Evaluation, #EUR153005625, December 2025
IDC MarketScape: North America IT Coaching Companies 2025-2026 Vendor Evaluation, #US52991625, December 2025
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