The Internet of Cognition: AI's Next Big Coordination Problem
CIO, Wednesday, September 16th, 2026
AI agents need shared understanding and coordinated reasoning, not just communication links.
Beyond connecting AI agents through infrastructure, enterprises face a new challenge: enabling agents to truly collaborate and think together.
Research shows that agents communicating actively often fail to coordinate effectively, with performance deteriorating as agent numbers increase.
Cisco's Outshift is developing an Internet of Cognition architecture to address semantic misalignment, shared context, and human oversight in multi-agent systems, helping agents achieve consensus and operate cohesively across organizational boundaries.