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Cisco Meraki Documentation

AI Assistant for Networking

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This page provides an overview of Cisco Meraki AI Assistant for Networking and how to get started. For access to the latest feature updates, see AI Assistant for Networking Product Updates.

Overview 

The Cisco AI Assistant is a proprietary conversational AI interface designed to help optimize network management, automate routine tasks, and promote proactive troubleshooting. Through AI-powered responses, recommendations, and insights – the AI assistant helps streamline network operations. 

With its troubleshooting capabilities, the AI Assistant helps assist admins and engineers with identifying and resolving network issues, and contributes to minimal downtime and enhanced performance.

Meraki AI Assistant with a Data Privacy statement, four categories of example prompts, and a dialogue box to interact with the Assistant.

Learn more with the free online training course on the Meraki Learning Hub:

Sign in with your Cisco SSO or create a free account to start training.
How can I access the AI Assistant?  

In the top right corner of the Meraki Dashboard click the AI Assistant icon to access the feature. 

Meraki Dashboard Clients Page with the AI Assistant Icon in the upper-right corner next to the Help, Alerts, and User icons.

Network-only admins in Dashboard have the same permissions as they do in Dashboard.

How can the AI Assistant Help You?

The AI Assistant helps IT teams reduce management workload, increase productivity, and improve the end-user networking experience. Start a conversation with the AI Assistant and ask, "What can you help me with?" to learn about its features.

This image is displayed to show how the AI Assistant helps IT teams manage workloads, boost productivity, and improve user experience, with example guidance on how to explore its features.

Primary Use Cases for AI Assistant

The AI Assistant can help in three primary use cases: monitoring, troubleshooting, and automated workflows.

Monitoring

What It Does:
Stay informed with real-time insights into network activity and performance. AI Assistant highlights actionable events and metrics to support proactive network management. 

Examples You Can Try:

  • What are the security events in my network?
  • In a table, show me the clients associated with the access point [name of AP]. 
  • Is my network compliant with Cisco's performance best practices?
  • Show me all the switches that rebooted today in this network.
Troubleshooting

What It Does:
Help accelerate issue resolution with data-driven guidance. AI Assistant helps simplify root cause analysis and includes proposed next steps to help minimize downtime and reduce operational overhead.

Examples You Can Try:

  • Show me all the association failures for wireless clients and sort by Failure Count.
  • Troubleshoot connectivity issues for client [MAC address] and provide next steps.
  • Was network [network name] down this morning / between [times].
  • Why does the [application name] application have slow response times on [network name]?
Automated Workflows

What It Does:
Help streamline routine operations such as provisioning and configuration. 

Examples You Can Try:

  • I want to create a Meraki network using workflows.​
  • I want to create a secure wireless network using workflows.
  • Help me add a new firewall rule to block all outbound traffic to [IP address] on all ports.
  • Help me modify the [SSID] on [network name] to enforce WPA2-Enterprise security and use [RADIUS server].    

Interacting with the AI Assistant

Entering Queries
  • Use clear and specific questions (e.g., "How do I configure a site-to-site VPN?" instead of "VPN not working").
  • Start a new thread for each session. 
Providing feedback via the AI Assistant

Your feedback is essential in improving the AI Assistant. If you encounter an incorrect or incomplete response, or if you have ideas for new features, please let us know using the thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons after an interaction.

  • If an answer is incorrect, use the thumbs down to provide feedback.
  • If the response is helpful, use the thumbs up. 

Provide details on why the response was incorrect or unhelpful. Include additional details if possible:

  • What you were trying to accomplish.
  • What you expected to happen.
  • Any issues or unexpected behavior.

This image is displayed to prompt users to explain why a response was incorrect or unhelpful and to provide more details if possible.

Getting Support

If the AI Assistant is unresponsive or you are unable to provide in-product feedback using the thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons, please open a Support Ticket.

FAQ 

How accurate are the recommendations from AI Assistant? 

The AI Assistant is designed to provide suggestions by leveraging pre-trained models tuned for networking-specific tasks, as well as integrating with real-time system data when applicable, as well as drawing from networking industry best practices and product documentation to help generate responses. While the AI Assistant aims to provide grounded information, it is recommended that you validate its suggestions and actions, especially for critical configurations or troubleshooting.

Is my data being used to train the AI Assistant? 

No, your data is not used to train the AI Assistant. Cisco handles your data responsibly. See the Cisco AI Assistant Offer Disclosure.

Will the AI Assistant require an advanced license?

AI Assistant will be available for all tiers. However, the functionalities within it follows the tiers of the underlaying features it is leveraging. For instance, if PCAP Analysis is an Advantage tier feature, you only get it in the Assistant if you have Advantage tier.