Shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO | CSCO Price Prediction) are up 5% in midday trading on Tuesday, June 2, changing hands at $127 and change after a Monday close of $121.33. Cisco stock is printing fresh all-time highs as the company unveiled a sweeping AI cybersecurity and unified management push at its annual Cisco Live U.S. conference. The networking trade is extending across the sector. Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) is up 2% to around $174, a meaningful push higher after a slightly negative month into today. Notably, dedicated cybersecurity peers Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) and CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) are trading lower, with Palo Alto Networks stock off 2% and CrowdStrike stock down 3%. The split suggests that investors are reading Cisco’s launch as real competitive pressure on the dedicated security vendors. Cloud Control and Live Protect Power the Cisco Live Pop Cisco introduced Cisco Cloud Control, a unified technology management platform that lets human IT teams work alongside autonomous AI agents to oversee, monitor, and defend corporate infrastructure. Inside Cloud Control sits the AI Canvas, a generative workspace where customers can use natural-language conversations to build custom applications or deploy automated agents. The second pillar is an enhanced Cisco Live Protect, which delivers real-time automated cybersecurity defense patches with no software upgrades, reboots, or maintenance windows. Live Protect is initially deployed on N9000 series switches, with plans to expand to campus smart switches and secure routers later this year. Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s president and chief product officer, stated, “AI agents reason and act continuously at software speed, and that changes everything about how we scale, manage, and defend our critical infrastructure.” Cloud Control serves as the foundation for Cisco’s AgenticOps strategy, and the company also outlined a quantum-safe framework targeting “harvest now, decrypt later” tactics. The launch builds on a strong fundamental