As AI reshapes job roles and automation redefines workflows, organizations are underneath stress to repeatedly construct, validate, and apply new expertise at scale. Most expertise pipelines merely can’t sustain: practically 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 specialists 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 Providers in North America and a Chief within the 2025 IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers in Europe.
Thanks to everybody at Cisco and at our companions for making this recognition potential. As AI adjustments 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 burdened by widening IT expertise shortages,” in keeping with IDC MarketScape for North America IT Coaching Providers. The report continues: “IDC tasks that by the tip of subsequent 12 months, expertise shortages may value the worldwide financial system as much as US$5.5 trillion in misplaced income, product delays, high quality points, and impaired competitiveness.” Workforce improvement is not a nice-to-have. It’s foundational infrastructure for competitiveness in an AI-driven financial 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 at present whereas making ready for what’s subsequent.
Proper now, which means making 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 potential to satisfy this want for reskilling—each for people and for enterprises—could have implications for generations. At Study with Cisco, we’re addressing the problem head-on.
Cisco Networking Academy’s Introduction to Fashionable AI, now obtainable in 12 languages, is already considered one of our hottest programs. The NetAcad workforce can also be releasing a whole suite of studying referred to as “Apply AI.” The primary module exhibits how one can use AI-driven thematic evaluation to raised perceive buyer suggestions. The subsequent 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 shall be introduced at Cisco Reside Amsterdam.
We’re additionally seeing thrilling traction with our AI Enterprise Practitioner Studying Path, obtainable 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 means of strategic use and a spread of enterprise functions.
ICT employees can anticipate even larger adjustments. 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 remodeled.
We’re reworking our certifications portfolio simply as shortly. We’re updating present 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 Middle certification observe. It permits learners to construct and validate expertise in deploying, migrating, and working AI options on Cisco information heart 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 skilled networking professionals to validate their potential to design, provision, and optimize networks and compute energy for at present’s AI workloads. It encompasses data of AI and machine studying, in addition to concerns regarding networks, safety, {hardware}, and the atmosphere.
We’ll proceed to make these expertise obtainable by means of 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 annually and greater than 28 million learners worldwide since inception, spanning foundational digital literacy by means of expert-level mastery.
Personalised, AI-driven studying at world scale
As AI transforms how work will get completed, it’s additionally redefining how individuals be taught.
By means of Cisco U., learners can establish talent gaps, obtain tailor-made content material, and observe progress over time—shifting studying from reactive coaching to proactive expertise improvement.
From GenAI-powered assessments and adaptive follow exams to dynamic content material updates, Cisco is embedding intelligence immediately into the training expertise—whereas persevering with to pair know-how with skilled instruction, mentorship, and neighborhood assist.
Studying by doing: Palms-on expertise that mirrors actuality
Cisco’s ecosystem is constructed round real-world functions, making ready learners with job-ready expertise. We’re emphasizing project-based studying—reminiscent of 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 interact with digital labs, hardware-based distant labs, real looking simulations, Seize the Flag challenges, and project-based experiences that mirror enterprise environments. They’ll construct, safe, automate, and troubleshoot networks utilizing the identical instruments and situations they’ll encounter on the job.
This experiential method extends to world and regional occasions reminiscent of Cisco Reside, 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 repeatedly be taught is the last word aggressive benefit, we consider IDC MarketScape’s recognition reinforces what we see every single day: expertise are the muse of innovation, resilience, and financial development.
At Cisco, we stay dedicated to empowering learners, companions, and prospects throughout North America, Europe, and past with the data and hands-on expertise they should lead in an AI-powered world—at present and into the longer term.
As a result of when individuals thrive, know-how transforms.
The IDC MarketScape for IT Coaching Providers analyzes IT coaching corporations with portfolios which might be applicable to organizations contemplating vital 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
- Important know-how experience that’s vital to transformation initiatives
IDC MarketScape: European IT Coaching Providers 2025 Vendor Evaluation, #EUR153005625, December 2025
IDC MarketScape: North America IT Coaching Providers 2025-2026 Vendor Evaluation, #US52991625, December 2025
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