This Cisco report examines how AI and agentic AI are fundamentally changing network traffic patterns and will require organizations to rethink network architecture, capacity planning, and performance management. While AI traffic is still relatively small today, it is growing rapidly, with AI inference traffic increasing up to 10x year-over-year and projected to account for 25% of total network traffic by 2035. Unlike traditional web traffic, AI-generated traffic lasts longer, creates more upstream data, and operates at software speed rather than human speed. The report highlights that AI agents can generate up to 450% more network traffic per task, with most of that traffic tied directly to AI inference. As AI adoption accelerates across enterprises and consumers, organizations will need more resilient, observable, and intelligent networks capable of supporting AI-driven workloads, autonomous agents, and increasingly complex digital interactions.

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