Cisco Meraki AI Assistant Prompting Guide: Deep Reasoning Mode

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A collection of ready-to-use prompts for investigating, optimizing, troubleshooting, and monitoring Cisco Meraki networks with Deep Reasoning Mode.

This guide has ready-to-use prompts for every major network task. Pick one that matches what you need, copy it into the AI Assistant, and the agent will pull live data from your network and tell you what it finds.

How to use this guide

• Pick a prompt that fits what you are trying to do

• Copy it into the AI Assistant with Deep Reasoning Mode turned on

• The agent pulls live data from your network. Give it anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes depending on the scope

• If the prompt has text in [brackets], replace it with your actual values before you send it

ORG-WIDE prompts look across your entire organization. NETWORK prompts work on whichever network you have selected.

Network Audit and Optimization

Use these prompts to get a clear picture of where your network stands before problems show up.

Lifecycle and Inventory

ORG-WIDE

Go through my entire organization and find any hardware that has reached end of life or is no longer supported. For each device show me the model, its support status, how many days past end of support it is, and what the recommended replacement is. Sort them by urgency.

Design and Architecture

ORG-WIDE

Check uplink redundancy across my organization. For each site tell me how many WAN uplinks it has, whether warm spare is set up, and whether switches are stacked. Call out any sites that have a single point of failure.

NETWORK

Look at the spanning tree topology for this network. Check which switch is the root bridge and which is the backup, review switch priorities, and flag any access layer switches that could accidentally win a root election.

NETWORK

Run a full security audit on this network. Give each area a score covering firewall rules, IDS and IPS, wireless security, switch hardening, segmentation, VPN, logging, and threat containment. Include a check for rogue access points and trace any you find back to the switch port they are connected to.

Capacity Planning

ORG-WIDE

Check how much throughput headroom is left on each MX across my organization. Compare the actual WAN usage against the appliance's rated capacity and flag anything that is getting close to its ceiling, along with what you would recommend as an upgrade.

NETWORK

Look at PoE budget on every switch in this network. Show me how much power each switch is using as a percentage of its total budget, flag anything above 75 percent, and list any ports that have been denied power.

NETWORK

Analyze how the WAN uplinks are being used. Show me throughput on each uplink as a percentage of its configured bandwidth, identify any links that are saturated, and check whether traffic is being spread across available uplinks.

NETWORK

Run a 90 day capacity forecast for this branch. Look at how WAN traffic has been trending on each uplink, project when each link is likely to fill up, and give me a list of options from the cheapest fix like tuning QoS all the way up to upgrading the circuit.

ORG-WIDE

Which sites are going to need more Wi-Fi capacity in the next 90 days? Show me how client counts have been growing, what airtime utilization looks like, and how long each site has before it saturates.

Tip: If a site comes back with more than 365 days to saturation on client counts, check the airtime section. Airtime congestion often becomes the real problem before client density gets there.

Wireless Performance

NETWORK

Analyze wireless capacity and coverage across this network. For each access point show me the client count, channel utilization by band, and how signal strength is distributed. Point out any overloaded access points or coverage gaps and tell me whether the fix is to add more APs or rearrange what is already there.

NETWORK

Audit how channels are assigned across all access points. Look for same channel interference, any patterns in how DFS channels are being avoided, and how clients are spread across 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz. Flag anything in the channel plan that is hurting performance.

NETWORK

Find any sticky clients in this network. These are devices that are holding on to a distant access point when there is a closer one with a better signal. Tell me which clients are affected, which access point they should be on instead, and how big the signal difference is.

DHCP Health

NETWORK

Check DHCP pool capacity across this network. For each VLAN tell me how full the pool is, keeping in mind that MAC address randomization can make it look fuller than it really is. Flag any VLANs that are running low and tell me what to do about it.

NETWORK

Look for any rogue DHCP servers on this network. Tell me where the unauthorized DHCP traffic is coming from, how many clients have been affected, and which switch port the rogue server is sitting on.

Network Health

Quick checks for when you want an immediate read on what is happening right now.

NETWORK

What is wrong with my network in the last 24 hours?

NETWORK

Are there any critical alerts on my network in the past 24 hours?

Troubleshooting

Describe what you are seeing and the agent will dig into WAN, switching, and wireless data to figure out where the problem is coming from.

Outages and Connectivity

NETWORK

Internet is down at [site name]. Can you tell me whether the problem is with the WAN connection, the switching, or the wireless?

Tip: Replace [site name] with the name of the site as it appears in your Meraki dashboard.

NETWORK

We had a site-wide outage yesterday between [start time] and [end time]. Walk me through what happened.

Tip: Replace [start time] and [end time] with the actual times, for example 2:15 PM and 2:45 PM.

NETWORK

Several users are saying they have no connectivity. Can you tell me whether this looks like a switching problem, a wireless problem, or a WAN problem?

Performance and Slowness

NETWORK

Users are saying the network feels slow. Can you look at WAN, switching, and wireless and tell me where the bottleneck is?

NETWORK

Our VoIP calls keep cutting out. Is this a wireless issue, a QoS issue, or is the WAN just running out of capacity?

NETWORK

Video calls have been worse this week than they were before. What changed and what is causing it?

WiFi Problems

NETWORK

Devices are connecting to Wi-Fi but not getting an IP address. Can you figure out where the DHCP process is breaking down?

NETWORK

Users are not able to get onto our corporate SSID. Can you look into whether this is a problem with 802.1X or the RADIUS server?

NETWORK

Devices are not roaming properly. They are staying connected to an access point far away even when there is a closer one available. What is going on?

NETWORK

Wi-Fi in our conference rooms is slow. Is it a capacity issue, a coverage issue, or interference?

NETWORK

We are seeing devices dropping off 5 GHz more than they should. Can you check whether DFS events or RF interference might be the cause?

VPN Issues

NETWORK

Our branch office has lost its VPN connection to headquarters. Can you figure out what went wrong with the Auto VPN tunnel?

NETWORK

VPN tunnels between our spokes and hub keep going up and down. Can you look at NAT traversal, how stable the uplinks are, and the overall tunnel health?

NETWORK

We brought a new branch online and it cannot connect through VPN. What is configured incorrectly?

Wired and Switching

NETWORK

A switch port is not passing any traffic. Can you check the VLAN assignment, trunk configuration, and link status?

NETWORK

Phones on our access switches keep losing power and restarting. Can you look into what is happening with PoE?

NETWORK

We are seeing STP topology changes that are causing brief outages. Where is it coming from and how do we stabilize it?

NETWORK

802.1X authentication is not working on wired ports. Can you check the RADIUS connection, certificates, and how the ports are configured?

Changes, Alerts and Security

Use these when you need to understand what changed, what is alerting, or whether there is something suspicious going on.

Changes and Impact

NETWORK

What configuration changes have been made to this network in the last 7 days, and do any of them look like they could be connected to problems we are seeing?

NETWORK

We pushed a firmware update last weekend and now we are seeing intermittent drops. Could the two be related?

Alerts and Events

NETWORK

What critical alerts are active on my network right now and what is causing them?

NETWORK

I am seeing VPN connectivity alerts. Can you look into what is behind them?

NETWORK

Are there any event patterns in the last 24 hours that look concerning? Start with the most severe.

NETWORK

We keep getting rogue DHCP alerts. Can you find where it is coming from and tell me which switch port the rogue server is on?

Security

NETWORK

Are there any rogue access points on my network? Check the Air Marshal data and see if you can trace any of them back to a switch port.

NETWORK

Can you look through our firewall rules and flag anything that seems too permissive, any conflicts, or rules that are probably not needed anymore?

NETWORK

A user is getting blocked and they should not be. Can you look at the content filtering and application rules and figure out what is catching them?

Power User Tips

A few ways to get more out of every prompt.

Be specific to get better answers

Instead of:

Troubleshoot wireless capacity.

Try this:

Look at wireless capacity for this network. Show me the client load and channel utilization per access point by band, and for any that are overloaded tell me specifically what you would recommend.

Follow up to go deeper

After an initial result, you can ask a more targeted question to keep digging:

You found 3 switches with high PoE utilization. For each of them, show me which ports are drawing the most power and whether any of those devices could be moved to a different switch.

Ask across multiple domains at once

The agent can connect findings from WAN, wireless, and switching together in one response:

Do the VPN tunnel drops seem to line up with the WAN utilization spikes you found earlier?

Submitting Feedback

After every response, use the thumbs up or down buttons in the AI Assistant. Your rating is captured automatically.

• Thumbs up: select Correct or Helpful so we know what is working

• Thumbs down: select Incorrect, Not helpful, or Unsafe so we know what to fix

• The comment box is optional but useful. Even a short note like 'missed the secondary uplink' helps us improve quickly

For longer feedback or to continue the conversation, email cisco-agenticops@cisco.com.