Cisco will let Webex users @mention AI agents directly in group chats starting in Q1 2027, when the redesigned Webex app, collaborative agents, and third-party agents from Anthropic and OpenAI all ship together, the company announced Wednesday at its WebexOne conference.

Users will be able to assign work to agents in Webex "spaces" to schedule meetings, take notes, and track tasks — and, critically, share the results with the whole team. The agents will also work during video and voice calls through the AI Assistant side panel, though in calls they remain visible only to the individual user, not the team, a Cisco spokesperson said.

What changes for teams?

"You work with AI, but your teammates may never see that work — they can't build on it, contribute to it, or reuse it," said Amit Barave, Cisco vice president and general manager for Webex Suite and AI, in a blog post. "With Webex, agents become part of the team, participating where the work is happening."

"This makes AI a shared capability for the team," said Snorre Kjesbu, Cisco vice president and general manager for collaboration. "It can help people prepare together, carry decisions forward, and coordinate the next steps without losing the context of the conversation."

The collaborative agents sit inside a broader Webex app refresh that includes:

• A personalized landing page highlighting work priorities and upcoming meetings
• Suggested follow-up actions, such as responding to messages or reviewing meeting recaps
• Third-party agents joinable as team members in group conversations, including Anthropic's Claude Managed Agents — cloud-hosted agents that process multi-step tasks in the background — and OpenAI's recently announced "dot" agents

Which native agents are coming?

Cisco detailed several of its own agents alongside the chat integration:

• Personal Agents for Webex Calling — screen incoming calls, converse with callers to gauge needs and urgency, and take action on the user's behalf. Available Q1 2027.
• Translator agent — now in controlled availability, with general release in November. Delivers real-time translation in the Webex app and on Cisco 9800 Series Desk Phones across ten languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish.
• AI Coach agent for Vidcast — monitors presenters' pacing, tone, and word choice in Cisco's asynchronous video messaging tool. "The AI Coach watches and listens while a presenter delivers, reacts to pacing, tone, and word choice as they happen, and asks the questions a live audience would," Barave said. Available now.

How much will it cost?

Some Webex AI capabilities come at no extra charge within Webex Suite, priced at $25 per user per month, and Enterprise tiers. Advanced features — Polling and Translator agents, Personal Agents for Calling, and collaborative agent functionality — will require a new "Enhanced AI Offer for AI" add-on launching in the coming weeks. Cisco did not disclose add-on pricing.

The Translator agent carries a usage cap of 50 minutes of translation per user each month, with additional usage requiring an add-on. Cisco did not say whether other AI features will carry usage-based charges on top of fixed subscription fees.

How does Cisco stack up against Slack and Zoom?

The move tracks a wider push by collaboration vendors to embed agents where employees already work, said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst at Metrigy. Slack has moved in the same direction with Claude Tag, and Zoom with ZoomMate.

"Like the others, the strength of the agent is dependent on its access to information, so the key is enabling connectivity to external data sources such as CRM, ERP, project management, etc.," Lazar said. He noted rising business demand for agentic tools that bring context into meetings, saving time and increasing focus.

"Cisco's aim is to ensure that the Webex App can remain the place where people work, rather than other apps or AI interfaces like Claude Cowork," Lazar said. "I would say the only weakness in the Cisco portfolio now is ability to capture data from non-Webex meetings. They lack the capability that Zoom now has to capture audio from third-party or external meetings."

Jim Lundy, CEO of Aragon Research, rated the new assistant above competitors. "The new assistant literally knows what you are doing and your upcoming schedule and knows more than other major providers," Lundy said. "In fact, I'd say that their assistant could be sold unbundled."