Cisco and ServiceNow Partner to Simplify and Secure AI Adoption for Businesses at Scale

News Summary:

• Cisco and ServiceNow deepen partnership to ensure customers can adopt and scale AI securely and efficiently.
• Companies will bring portfolios closer together to help enterprises evolve their organizations as they embrace AI.
• First planned integration will tackle AI security and risk with Cisco AI Defense and ServiceNow's Security Operations (SecOps), enabling customers to streamline how they protect and govern AI applications.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- RSA CONFERENCE 2025 -- Cisco [NASDAQ: CSCO], the worldwide leader in networking and security and ServiceNow [NYSE: NOW], the AI platform for business transformation, today announced a deepened partnership to enable confident and secure AI adoption for businesses at scale. The combination of Cisco's infrastructure and security platforms and ServiceNow's AI-driven platform and security solutions will unlock mutual customers' ability to secure and scale their use of AI while decreasing risk and complexity. The first such integration will bring together Cisco's AI Defense capabilities with ServiceNow SecOps to provide more holistic AI risk management and governance. 

"Customers are searching for simplified solutions that not only address the complexity of the technology but also offer simplified workflows that will make innovation actionable," said Scott Crawford, Research Director for Information Security with S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research. "Respondents to a recent 451 Research survey of security practitioners¹ indicated on average that they spend 36% of their budget with a single vendor, which reflects this desire to reduce complexity in their tools and suppliers." 

The rapid proliferation of enterprise AI brings unprecedented opportunities, but also an entirely new set of risks and challenges that traditional cybersecurity and infrastructure solutions don't address. As AI applications begin to quickly reshape organizations' business practices, the underlying infrastructure, security frameworks, team workflows and governance requirements must change just as quickly. Rigorous management and monitoring of AI across the organization ensures strict data governance, confidentiality, reliability, and trust. Cisco and ServiceNow together plan to provide platform-based approaches to not only solve the challenges presented by AI, but empower businesses to confidently move even faster.

"Security has been blamed for slowing technology adoption in the past, but the right approach to safety and security will actually accelerate AI adoption," said Jeetu Patel, EVP and Chief Product Officer, Cisco. "The integration of ServiceNow and Cisco AI Defense is game changing for enterprises – providing organizations with the confidence of a single source of truth for managing AI risks and compliance, even while models continuously evolve."

"AI is unlocking new frontiers for business transformation—and securing that future requires more than just reactive defenses," said Amit Zavery, president, chief product officer and chief operating officer at ServiceNow. "Through this partnership, Cisco and ServiceNow are aligning security and AI operations at the platform level. By combining Cisco's advanced AI security with ServiceNow's role as the AI control tower for the enterprise, we're helping customers operationalize trust—ensuring that AI is governed, secure, and ready to scale."

Cisco & ServiceNow: Providing end-to-end AI Security
To demonstrate the power of more integrated solutions, Cisco and ServiceNow are addressing the new set of risks businesses are contending with as they adopt and scale AI. Security teams, AI teams and governance teams can struggle to stay connected, and there traditionally isn't visibility into the AI applications or their security posture. To solve this, customers require integrated platforms that stretch across infrastructure and workflows. Customers rely on ServiceNow to streamline IT service management and enhance operational workflows through automation and integrated solutions to control risk and governance. Now with AI Defense, teams will be able to leverage these same capabilities to build programs around AI assets to ensure governance and reduce risk.

The landscape of AI adoption across organizations includes internal applications, commercial SaaS platforms, and unsanctioned AI introduced by employees. Cisco and ServiceNow will provide customers with a consistent, cohesive set of solutions for protecting AI applications and maintaining AI governance across these deployment types. The combination of Cisco AI Defense and ServiceNow SecOps is designed to provide customers:

• Visibility: Cisco AI Defense will discover AI workloads, models, and data that maps to applications and services in the ServiceNow platform.
• Vulnerability Management: Cisco AI Defense will perform automated vulnerability assessments, and findings will surface in ServiceNow Vulnerability Response (VR) where they are monitored, triaged, and addressed.
• Real-time Protection: Cisco AI Runtime Protection offers real-time guardrails for AI applications. ServiceNow Security Posture Control can identify gaps in coverage from Cisco AI run-time protection in AI applications and this data can be made available for AI vulnerability prioritization.
• Incident Response: Telemetry from AI applications will be delivered from Cisco AI Defense to ServiceNow Security Incident Response (SIR) to enhance security operations center investigations and facilitate proactive threat response.
• Governance: Customers will be able to map Cisco AI Defense controls to relevant standards in ServiceNow's Integrated Risk Management (IRM) platform so teams can measure and demonstrate AI organizational compliance.

Initial field trials are beginning soon, and mutual customers of Cisco and ServiceNow can expect to be able to take advantage of this integration in the second half of calendar year 2025. Additional integrations of Cisco and ServiceNow capabilities are planned for later in 2025.

Cisco and ServiceNow: A strategic partnership for an AI Future
Today's deepened partnership builds on the companies' seven years of established collaboration. But the demand from customers for joint solutions has never been higher. As technology becomes more complicated and AI creates opportunities to reimagine how work gets done, customers turn to their trusted partners. Cisco and ServiceNow are committed to providing customers with powerful, simplified solutions.

About Cisco 
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that is revolutionizing the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era. For more than 40 years, Cisco has securely connected the world. With its industry leading AI-powered solutions and services, Cisco enables its customers, partners and communities to unlock innovation, enhance productivity and strengthen digital resilience. With purpose at its core, Cisco remains committed to creating a more connected and inclusive future for all. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on X at @Cisco.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word 'partner' does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

About ServiceNow
ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is putting AI to work for people. We move with the pace of innovation to help customers transform organizations across every industry while upholding a trustworthy, human centered approach to deploying our products and services at scale. Our AI platform for business transformation connects people, processes, data, and devices to increase productivity and maximize business outcomes. For more information, visit: www.servicenow.com.

© 2025 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

¹ 451 Research Voice of the Enterprise: Information Security, Security Operations 2024 survey

SOURCE Cisco Systems, Inc.