From Cisco snapping up a cybersecurity start-up to a freshly revamped Salesforce Agentexchange, here are extracts from some of this week’s most popular news stories.
Cisco Nears $350M Deal for AI Security Startup – Should Contact Centers Be Paying Attention?
Cisco is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Astrix Security, an Israeli cybersecurity startup, in a deal valued somewhere between $250 million and $350 million.
The potential acquisition, first reported by The Information, seems to be driven by the security risks that come with deploying AI agents at scale.
Founded in 2021 by Alon Jackson and Idan Gour, both veterans of Israel’s elite Unit 8200 intelligence unit, Astrix has built its platform around the concept of ‘non-human identities’ (NHIs).
In plain terms, these are the API keys, service accounts, OAuth tokens, and machine credentials that AI agents and automated processes rely on to operate inside corporate environments.
As AI agent adoption accelerates, the volume of these identities is growing fast, and most organizations still have very limited visibility into what those agents are actually doing once embedded in their systems.
In discussing the news, Alon Jackson, CEO of Astrix Security, said:
“Many organizations want to integrate AI into every aspect of their work, but they need robust security. Our platform ensures that AI agents are not only effective but also secure and properly managed.”
Salesforce Relaunches AgentExchange, Marking a New Phase In Its AI Agent Marketplace Strategy
Salesforce has updated AgentExchange, its marketplace for AI agents, as part of its broader shift to agentic customer experience.
Having previously announced the early version of the marketplace last year, this update has shifted from a builder marketplace of components to a usable catalog of deployable AI agents, acting as a trusted hub for enterprises to discover, evaluate, and deploy solutions
AgentExchange positions AI agents as an extension of the workforce that can handle routine or complex tasks across the customer lifecycle, from service inquiries to sales engagement.
Brian Landsman, CEO of AgentExchange and EVP Global Partnerships at Salesforce, explains how the marketplace model extension gives customers a single place to build and deploy agents while helping partners reach more users and scale distribution more efficiently.
“Twenty years ago, we pioneered the concept of an app marketplace with AppExchange, and we’ve been number one ever since,” he said.
“Now, we are evolving the marketplace for the agentic era, bringing into one place everything that customers need to build and deploy agents, apps, and integrations across the enterprise, with the controls they expect.”
HubSpot Launches AEO Tool and AI Updates to Push Context-Aware CRM Strategy
HubSpot has announced a new AEO tool and a set of AI-powered updates as part of its Spring Spotlight product showcase, positioning context-aware AI as the next major battleground in CRM and marketing software.
The decline in visibility across traditional channels has created gaps across marketing, sales, and support, leaving teams lacking clear insight, spending increased time on manual work, and struggling to scale efficiently.
By helping go-to-market teams improve visibility and streamline sales activity, these updates enable teams to act on customer context more effectively.
Duncan Lennox, Chief Product and Technology Officer at HubSpot, argues that workflows should deliver relevant, outcome-driven results rather than generic outputs for deeper customer understanding.
“Most AI tools have access to data. What they don’t have is context,” he said.
“Context is much more complex. If data is what happened, context is why. It’s deep knowledge of your customers, your market, and how your team works. That knowledge grows with every interaction, delivered with precision at the moment it’s needed.
“Without it, AI gives you generic output. With it, you get real outcomes. And that’s what we’re building at HubSpot.”
8×8 Launches AI Studio, Lets Any CX Team Build Their Own AI Agents
8×8 has launched AI Studio, a tool that lets contact center teams build and deploy AI agents on the platform they already operate – without specialist developers, professional services engagements, or months of integration work.
Available now in early availability for existing customers, the product is designed to address one of the more persistent frustrations in enterprise AI adoption: the gap between deciding to deploy an agent and actually getting one into production.
Indeed, according to the Metrigy Customer Experience Optimisation 2025-26 report, nearly three in four CX leaders would rather build their own AI agents than purchase off-the-shelf solutions, with trust and domain expertise cited as the main reasons.
That appetite has existed for a while, but the practical barriers have kept many organizations stuck at the planning stage.
Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, made the case for why native infrastructure changes the equation:
“8×8 AI Studio is not an AI layer sitting on top of a communications platform, it’s AI embedded in the infrastructure itself. The LLM has direct access to real-time voice data, network telemetry, and the full interaction context that external tools typically cannot access.”
