Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking and security, today released the South African results from the third annual Cisco AI Readiness Index. This release comes ahead of Cisco Connect, a premier event scheduled for October 23rd. This platform will bring together Cisco customers, partners, and industry leaders to discuss how organizations can prepare for the future of AI.
A small but consistent group of companies — the ‘Pacesetters,’ about 18% of organizations in South Africa, and 13% globally, for the last three years — outperform their peers across every measure of AI value, captured for the first time in Cisco’s global study of over 8,000 AI leaders across 30 markets and 26 industries.
The Pacesetters’ sustained advantage indicates a new form of resilience: a disciplined, system-level approach that balances strategic drivers with the data and infrastructure needed to keep pace with AI’s accelerating evolution. They’re already architecting for the future with 98% globally designing their networks for the growth, scale and complexity of AI compared to 57% in South Africa.
The combination of foresight and foundation is delivering real, tangible results at a time when two major forces are reshaping the landscape: AI agents, which raise the bar for scale, security, and governance; and AI Infrastructure Debt, the early warning signs of hidden bottlenecks that threaten to erode long-term value.
Smangele Nkosi, General Manager of Cisco South Africa says, “AI is accelerating change, no matter the industry or how advanced the market is. Organisations everywhere want to embrace AI to boost efficiency, spark innovation, and create new ways of doing business. The alignment of AI with strategy, data, and infrastructure helps companies extract real value from its deployment, enabling a sustained competitive edge. AI value doesn’t come from experimentation alone; it comes from execution.”
The Pacesetter profile: readiness as competitive advantage
Cisco’s research outlines a consistent pattern among these leaders delivering real returns.
- They make AI part of the business, not a side project.
Nearly all Pacesetters (99%) have a defined AI roadmap (vs 59% in South Africa) and 91% (vs 37% in South Africa) have a change-management plan. Budgets match intent, with 79% making AI the top investment priority (vs 23% in South Africa) and 96% with short- and long-term funding strategies (vs 49% in South Africa). - They build infrastructure that’s ready to grow.
Their architect for the always-on AI era. 71% of Pacesetters say their networks are fully flexible and can scale instantly for any AI project (vs 18% in South Africa), and 77% are investing in new data-center capacity within the next 12 months (vs 41% in South Africa). - They move pilots into production.
62% have a mature, repeatable innovation process for generating and scaling AI use cases (vs 16% in South Africa), and three-quarters (77%) have already finalized those use cases (vs 26% in South Africa). - They measure what matters.
95% track the impact of their AI investments — almost three times higher than others — and 71% are confident their use cases will generate new revenue streams, almost double the local average. - They turn security into strength.
87% are highly aware of AI-specific threats (vs 59% in South Africa), 62% integrate AI into their security and identity systems (vs 44% in South Africa), and 75% are fully equipped to control and secure AI agents (vs 52% in South Africa). For them, trust is part of the value equation.
Pacesetters achieve more widespread results because of this approach: 90% report gains in profitability, productivity, and innovation, compared with 71% overall in South Africa.
AI agents: ambition outpacing readiness
The Index shows 93% of organizations in South Africa plan to deploy AI agents, and nearly 44% expect them to work alongside employees within a year. But for the vast majority of companies, AI agents are exposing weak foundations — systems that can barely handle reactive, task-based AI, let alone the autonomous systems that think, act, and learn continuously. More than a third (31%) say their networks can’t scale for complexity or data volume and just 18% describe their networks as flexible or adaptable.
Pacesetters are again the exception. Their disciplined, system-level approach has already laid the foundations they will need to scale.
AI Infrastructure Debt: The emerging drag on value
The report introduces a new concept — AI Infrastructure Debt — the modern evolution of technical and digital debt that once held back digital transformation.
It’s the silent accumulation of compromises, deferred upgrades, and underfunded architecture that erodes the value of AI over time. Some early warning signs are already visible: 40% expect workloads to rise by over 30% within three years, 64% struggle to centralize data, only 23% have robust GPU capacity and two out of five can detect or prevent AI-specific threats.
Each of these points to the gap between AI ambition and operational readiness. But when the systems that power AI aren’t secure, the debt becomes dangerous. Pacesetters aren’t immune, but their foresight, governance, and investment discipline position them better to avoid problems compounding into more costly risks.
Download the report: Value follows readiness
As agentic systems and autonomous AI push organizations into an era of constant compute demand, the report proves value follows readiness, with the most AI-ready organizations setting the pace for others to follow.
About the Cisco AI Readiness Index 2025
The Cisco AI Readiness Index 2025 is a global study, now in its third year, based on a double-blind survey of 8,000 senior IT and business leaders responsible for AI strategy at organizations with over 500 employees across 26 industries.
