Keynote: AI and Cisco Supply Chain

11:10 am - 11:35 am

Eighteen months ago, Desmond Murray and his team made a strategic bet that the trajectory of agentic AI capabilities would fundamentally redefine how Cisco's Supply Chain organization operates. They set out with a dual mandate: capturing AI's vast potential while protecting against the evolving AI threat landscape.

 

In this session, Murray, VP of Supply Chain IT at Cisco, charts that journey: from early AI wins, through a shift-left transformation of the software development lifecycle, to the AI-driven vulnerability scanning and continuous risk assessment that now protect Cisco's systems and supply chain partners. As experimentation with AI agents risked fragmentation across the business, Supply Chain IT built a governance model to unify those efforts, bringing security, observability, and interoperability into a single foundation. He'll also address the new threat landscape created as frontier AI capabilities reach attackers as well as defenders, and Cisco's response to it.

 

Looking ahead, the focus is shifting from task-based optimization to agentic interoperability focused on business outcomes, connecting agents beyond the enterprise directly with the supplier and manufacturing ecosystem.

 

Key Technologies Covered

  • Spec-Driven Development with Security Constitution 
  • Shift-Left Security Architecture 
  • AI Security Frontier Model for Exploitable Vulnerability Detection 
  • Automated Code Review & Patching 
  • Dynamic Partner Risk Assessment 
  • Unified Governance for AI Security & Observability 
  • Frontier AI Threat Landscape & Defense 
  • Agent-to-Agent Interoperability

Featured Speakers

Mr. Desmond Murray

Mr. Desmond Murray

Vice President, Supply Chain IT, Cisco

Desmond Murray  
VP, Supply Chain IT, Cisco

 

Desmond "Des" Murray is Vice President, Supply Chain IT at Cisco, where he leads digital solutions for the global development and distribution of billions of dollars in Cisco products quarterly. He focuses on translating AI potential into measurable business outcomes: driving cost savings, quality improvements, and delivery optimization across complex supply chain workflows.

 

Over more than 20 years at Cisco, Des has built a reputation for architectural vision and pragmatic scaling of emerging technologies. He spearheaded the foundation of Cisco's Data Science and ML capabilities, modernized critical workflows through secure cloud migration, and now leads his organization in deploying AI-powered automation and governance frameworks. His work emphasizes measurable impact: delivering sustained cost savings while maintaining strict controls and human oversight in increasingly autonomous systems.

 

Des has held leadership roles spanning Sales Finance IT, Sales IT, Data Security, and Enterprise Data Services, each demonstrating his ability to drive organizational transformation alongside technical innovation. He brings both technical depth and business acumen to complex, multi-stakeholder environments.

 

Before Cisco, Des was Director of International e-Business at Franklin Templeton, where he led digital strategy for global operations. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master's degree in economics from University College Cork.