IT leaders from across the country gathered at Cisco Live US 2025 to explore the latest innovations, strategies, and best practices in technology. The event featured tailored sessions and keynotes designed to address the unique challenges and opportunities facing retail, hospitality, financial services, sports, media, and entertainment, healthcare and other consumer-focused organizations. Here are a few highlights from the week.

The Cisco Store Tech Lab

The Cisco Store Tech Lab tours at Cisco Live US provided an engaging and innovative retail experience for attendees that highlighted the latest advancements in retail technology. Visitors explored a variety of smart retail solutions that showcased how Cisco is connecting and protecting retail businesses in the AI era. Featured technologies in the Cisco Store at Cisco Live included:

• Smart building technology: With the use of Meraki Smart Cameras, Meraki Sensors, Meraki Access Points, and Cisco Spaces the Cisco Store generates real-time insights into customer demographics and behavior and each individual store to enable tailored marketing and inventory strategies, improve energy management, and enhance operational efficiency through automated systems and precise location-based analytics.
• Collaboration software: Webex Connect provides seamless communication and prompt responses to customer inquiries and those needing support through automated agent interactions.
• Assurance: ThousandEyes provides end-to-end visibility across complex environments of owned and unowned networks for enhanced detection, analysis, and response to service impacting issues.
• Observability: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk IT Service Intelligence, Splunk Edge Hub, and Splunk Real User Monitoring work collectively to deliver comprehensive and real-time analytics, monitoring, and insights into diverse data sources, IT service health, and user interactions while efficiently managing data processing loads.

Cisco Customer Achievement Awards

The Cisco Customer Achievement Awards recognized outstanding Cisco customers who achieve exceptional results through innovative use of Cisco solutions. The awards celebrated excellence in areas such as AI-readiness, future-proof workplaces, digital resilience, and sustainability, highlighting transformative business outcomes and customer success stories. Winners were announced during the awards ceremony at Cisco Live San Diego 2025 and featured numerous consumer industry customers.

AI-Readiness:The AI Readiness Awards celebrated customers transforming their organizations to power AI workloads seamlessly across clouds, on-premises, and edge, using Cisco's advanced solutions. Consumer industry winners included:

• TaxSlayer -Infrastructure Innovator Award Winner
• SmartCap -Operations Pioneer Award Winner

Digital Resilience:The Digital Resilience Awards honored customers excelling in security, reliability, and performance with advanced threat prevention, connectivity, and observability for optimized services and user experience. Consumer industry winners included:

• Steve Madden -Cybersecurity Defender Award Winner
• Itaú Unibanco -Assurance Avenger Award Winner

High Impact Sessions

There were numerous high impact sessions throughout the week with ties to Cisco consumer industries customers including:

Sports, Technology & Service: A Conversation with Monumental Sports & Entertainment on Empowering Communities

Brian Tippens, Cisco's SVP and Chief Social Impact & Inclusion Officer along with Ted Leonsis, CEO of Monumental Sports Group delivered an inspiring discussion on how the intersection of technology, sports, and purpose-driven leadership can drive meaningful change. As the owner of the Washington Wizards, Capitals, and Mystics, and the founder of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Leonsis has leveraged his platforms to create lasting social impact-from education and youth development to empowering Veteran communities. Tippens and Leonsis discussed how doing good has shaped their approach to business, investing, and community engagement.

Transforming Healthcare at Keck Medicine of USC, UCLA Health, and Northwestern Medicine 

This fireside chat showcased how leading institutions like Keck Medicine of USC, UCLA Health, and Northwestern Medicine are revolutionizing their network infrastructures and security posture with Cisco technologies. The panel offered real-world insights and strategies for successful technology integration in healthcare, setting new benchmarks for innovation and efficiency.

• Keck Medicineof USC brought insight into how they are enhancing network security and management using Cisco Identity Services Engine and Catalyst Center, implementing advanced segmentation and automation.
• UCLA Healthdetailed their transition to Cisco Software-Defined Access, which modernized their network with policy-driven automation, boosting security, and scalability.
• Northwestern Medicineshared their experiences in enhancing patient data security and operational efficiency through strategic micro-segmentation initiatives.

Explore Cisco Live US 2025 On-Demand Sessions

Don't miss the opportunity to catch up on all the valuable insights and innovations shared at Cisco Live US 2025 by exploring the Cisco Live on-demand session library. Whether you want to revisit your favorite presentations or discover new topics relevant to your organization, the on-demand sessions offer flexible access to expert-led discussions, product demonstrations, and industry best practices.

Be sure to check out must-watch sessions such as Connecting and Protecting Retail Businesses in the AI Era, Connecting and Protecting Financial Services Institutions in the AI Era, and Connecting and Protecting Healthcare Organizations in the AI Era for in-depth perspectives on how AI is transforming security and connectivity in consumer industries. It's the perfect way to stay informed, inspire your team, and make the most of Cisco Live-anytime, anywhere.