“Technology providers across the GenAI ecosystem continue to build out agentic strategies and portfolios to help demonstrate the power of GenAI technology through practical use cases which highlight vendors’ unique technologies,” said Charlotte Dunlap, Research Director for GlobalData.
“In the year ahead, vendors will lean heavily on their strengths across the cloud stack in order to help differentiate from rivals and gain a foothold in the fast-growing market segment.”
Of the slew of AI agent announcements made in recent weeks, take for example, three very different tech providers, each one specialising in networking, automation, and cloud, each using varying approaches involving acquisitions, technology partnerships, and internal innovations.
Cisco and Mistral – first AI agent
Cisco and LLM partner Mistral for example embarked on co-creating their first AI agent, an AI renewals agent aimed at streamlining and improving upon traditional customer renewals.
Interestingly, Cisco is using the real-time analysis agent for its own internal use, downplaying any plans for presenting the tool to its broader customer base.
Cisco comes at the GenAI space not from a traditional platforms role as most rivals in this space, but from an infrastructure modernisation approach. The company is leading with its strengths to take on prominent rivals further up the cloud stack by demonstrating its unique ability to address pain-points among operations experts. These include configuration, orchestration, and deployment of modern apps in GenAI technologies, ensuring adequate security as well as monitoring (observability) and automation.
ServiceNow buys into GenAI
Workflow automation giant ServiceNow accelerated its presence in the GenAI space through the acquisition of Moveworks for just under $3bn.
The move will enhance its efforts in agentic AI and automation solutions via a newly acquired front-end AI assistant which improves the employee users experience. Like other ITSM and automation leaders, ServiceNow stepped into the market segment in 2023 with GenAI initiatives, often involving proprietary LLMs.
The acquisition will build on the company’s Now Assist offering, which is integrated with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Alibaba – on the attack but feeling the pressure
Alibaba’s latest AI assistant app Quark, powered by its Qwen-based advanced reasoning model, integrates deep thinking/research and task execution to enhance its UI. The app is focused on supporting academic research, medical diagnostics and other problem-solving applications.
Helping shore its GenAI efforts, the company has partnered with Manus AI, a GenAI agent that is focused squarely on competing with OpenAI’s AI agent, DeepResearch.
Alibaba is also feeling the pressure from Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s high-profile R1 model released earlier this year, as Alibaba strives to establish a leadership position not only in China but globally. The company claims that its AI reasoning model, QwQ-32B, is on par with rival models such as DeepSeek.
