WebexOne 2026: A new chapter for intelligent, secure calling

On By Amey Parandekar7 Min Read

There is always an unmistakable energy around WebexOne, but this year felt especially significant for Cisco Calling. We introduced major advances in trusted infrastructure, AI-powered experiences, and flexible deployments, all built around a simple commitment: helping organizations make every call count.

From protecting the world’s most critical conversations to bringing AI into everyday calling and giving customers more freedom in how they modernize, this year’s announcements demonstrate how Cisco is continuing to redefine what enterprise calling can be.

Cisco powers calling globally

Cisco Calling scale across Cisco UCM, Webex Calling, and BroadWorks

The scale of Cisco Calling is unmatched. Webex Calling now serves more than 20 million users worldwide. Another 30 million rely on Cisco Unified Communications Manager on-premises, while Cisco BroadWorks supports 32 million users through service providers. Across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and service provider environments, Cisco powers communications for more than 80 million users, including people working in healthcare, financial services, government, manufacturing, transportation, utilities, and other industries where every call can matter.

We’re incredibly proud of that scale, but we also understand the responsibility that comes with it. These aren’t just calls running across our technology. They’re conversations that keep businesses operating, connect people to critical services, and help organizations respond when it matters most. Our customers place enormous trust in Cisco every day, and we never take that trust for granted.

Trust built into every layer of calling

High-trust calling security governance protection and resilience layers

Cisco Calling runs on infrastructure that spans the data center, network, security, management, and observability. By bringing these layers together, Cisco can prioritize voice across the network, identify problems faster, simplify operations, and help keep calling available when conditions change.

Security starts with the architecture. Zero Trust controls, enhanced end-to-end encryption, continuous threat monitoring, Bring Your Own Keys, and Hybrid Data Security help protect conversations and business data.

Cisco also helps protect employees from both digital and physical threats through best-in-class partnerships embedded into the calling experience. Mutare and SecureLogix help defend against spam and fraudulent calls, Pindrop helps detect deepfake and synthetic voice threats, and E911 capabilities from Redsky and Intrado help protect employees in physical emergencies by connecting them to critical emergency services when every second matters.

Enterprises also need control over their data and how communications comply with regional requirements. Sovereign and air-gapped cloud options, global data residency, Webex Compliance Hub, AI Defense, and responsible AI practices give organizations greater control over their information and governance policies.

Resilience completes the foundation. Webex Calling provides a 99.999% SLA, enhanced survivability, and offline calling availability in the Webex app, helping organizations maintain critical communications during network interruptions and other service disruptions.

AI that improves every interaction

This has been a landmark year for AI innovation in Cisco Calling. From the general availability of Cisco AI Assistant and AI Receptionist earlier this year to the new AI experiences unveiled at WebexOne, we’re bringing intelligence across the entire calling journey to help employees work more effectively, improve customer interactions, and make every conversation more valuable.

AI Assistant for Webex Calling

Cisco AI Assistant supports employees before, during, and after every call, taking care of the details so they can focus on the conversation. Live and post-call summaries eliminate the need to take notes, while our Enhanced AI offer brings even more intelligence into the calling experience:

  • Caller Intent gives employees an early view of why someone is calling using past conversations as context, helping them prepare for the conversation.
  • Transfer Summaries carry important context to the next employee, so callers don’t have to start over and repeat themselves.
  • Sentiment Analysis provides insight into caller sentiment, helping employees recognize when a conversation may need additional attention.
  • Topic Analytics reveal what customers and partners are calling about across teams, locations, or the organization – helping leaders understand demand and its potential business impact.
  • Translator Agent Starter Pack includes starter minutes per user (50 minutes) for live speech translation, helping support more inclusive conversations.
  • Suggested Responses help customer-facing employees provide clear, consistent answers in the moment.

AI Receptionist

AI Receptionist takes care of routine calls so employees can focus on higher-value conversations, while making sure every customer call gets answered. It responds immediately, carries on a natural conversation, handles common requests, and connects callers to the right person when needed. It’s also simple to configure and can be deployed in minutes.

We’ve recently expanded AI Receptionist with multilingual support, API access, recording and analytics, and support for EU AI transparency requirements. And we’re not slowing down. Over the coming months, we plan to add even more intelligence and flexibility, including transfer by name, transfer summaries, call transcripts, previews, MCP integrations, URL scraping, session limits, and usage capping.

Personal agents for Webex Calling

At WebexOne, we unveiled the next step in our vision for AI-powered calling: personal agents for Webex Calling, bringing the power of Cisco AI Agents directly to every employee.

Personal agents introduce an entirely new way to manage incoming calls. It can understand who is calling, why they’re calling, how urgent the call is, and whether it needs your immediate attention. Based on your availability and preferences, it can connect or transfer the call, or help arrange a follow-up.

That fundamentally changes what happens when you can’t pick up. Instead of sending an important customer, partner, or colleague to a voicemail dead end, personal agents can understand what they need and determine the right next step. Employees get fewer unnecessary interruptions while staying accessible for the conversations that matter most.

It’s a simple but powerful shift: an unanswered call no longer has to be a missed opportunity.

Translator Agent

Language has always been one of the most fundamental barriers to communication. When two people don’t speak the same language, even a simple conversation can require an interpreter, a translation service, or someone else to bridge the gap.

At WebexOne, we announced the controlled availability of Translator Agent, bringing real-time speech translation directly into the Webex app and upcoming support for Cisco enterprise phones. At launch, Translator Agent supports ten languages, including English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Now, each person can simply speak in their preferred language while the other hears the conversation in theirs, with the speaker’s tone and emotion preserved. It removes a longstanding barrier from the conversation itself, helping employees, customers, and global teams communicate more naturally without relying on a separate interpretation service.

Flexible deployment on your terms

For many IT leaders, modernization presents a difficult tradeoff. They depend on Cisco UCM for the stability, continuity, control, and security their business requires, but they also know AI is rapidly changing how employees work, how customers engage, and how IT operates. They need a plan to bring those capabilities into their organization, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to commit every user, site, or region to a cloud migration timeline.

Cisco believes they shouldn’t have to choose.

Cloud Intelligence for Cisco UCM

Cloud Intelligence for UCM user customer and administration experiences

At WebexOne, we announced a breakthrough in calling modernization: Cloud Intelligence for Cisco Unified Communications Manager. This industry-first approach brings cloud-powered AI and Webex innovation to existing UCM environments without requiring customers to move their calling platform to the cloud. It’s something only Cisco can deliver because we support the complete calling architecture across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments.

Cloud Intelligence brings some of our most powerful Webex innovations to the more than 30 million users who rely on Cisco UCM. Cisco remains firmly committed to UCM and its continued evolution, with versions 16 and 17 extending the platform’s roadmap well into the next decade.

For employees and customers, that means new AI-powered experiences like AI Assistant with intelligent call summaries, Customer Assist for customer-facing teams, AI Receptionist for automated call handling, and Cisco Attendant Console for smarter, more efficient call management.

For IT, Cloud Intelligence makes UCM simpler and more cost-effective to operate. AI Canvas, real-time analytics and AI-powered insights, anomaly detection, Alert Center, and cloud-based management capabilities help administrators identify and resolve issues faster, automate routine work, and reduce operational overhead. Organizations can also modernize PSTN connectivity with Cisco Calling Plans or Cloud Connect for UCM, reducing infrastructure complexity and costs.

Cloud Intelligence add-on and independent add-ons for Cisco UCM

Critically, none of this requires a forced migration timeline. The Cloud Intelligence for UCM add-on brings the complete Webex Calling feature set and AI-powered experiences to UCM, with the flexibility to add it for some or all users and move between cloud and on-premises as business requirements change. Other services, including AI Receptionist, Customer Assist, Cisco Attendant Console, Cisco Calling Plans, and Cloud Connect for UCM, can be adopted independently of the Cloud Intelligence add-on and of one another, allowing customers to choose the capabilities that best fit their needs.

It’s modernization on your terms: introduce the innovation you need today, expand when the business is ready, and keep the flexibility to decide what moves to the cloud, what stays on-premises, and when.

Making every call count

More than 80 million users rely on Cisco-powered calling platforms across cloud, on-premises, and service provider environments. That scale makes us proud, but more importantly, it reminds us of the responsibility we carry.

The innovations we introduced at WebexOne are about continuing to earn that trust: protecting the conversations that matter, bringing AI into the moments where it can make a meaningful difference, and giving every organization the freedom to modernize on its own terms.

Because behind every one of those 82 million users are conversations that matter. And our job is to help make every one of them count.

Learn more:

Webex Calling

Cisco UCM

Cloud Intelligence for UCM

About The Author

Amey Parandekar
Amey Parandekar VP, Webex Calling Product Management Cisco
Amey leads Product Management for Webex Calling, an enterprise grade, globally available and innovative calling, and phone system.
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