Extreme Networks has released first figures on its AI agent, Agent ONE Coworker. According to the company, customers saved about 1,000 hours of troubleshooting in the first month and acted on 98 percent of critical alerts.
Extreme Networks has presented first usage data for Agent ONE Coworker, the AI agent built into Extreme Platform ONE. The figures cover the first month after general availability and come from the vendor; there has been no independent verification.
Proactive rather than on request
Agent ONE Coworker works in the background on the ambient AI principle and takes the current network context into account. Unlike conversational AI systems that wait for input, the agent speaks up on its own. Through the “nudge” function, users receive recommendations that appear directly in their workflow. Within defined rules, the agent can also, according to Extreme, identify problems, make decisions and carry out actions. It is available to all Extreme Platform ONE customers. According to the company, it is based on a purpose-built AI architecture that combines the analysis of complex relationships with real-time network data and knowledge of network operations. The stated aim is fewer disruptions and faster problem resolution.
The numbers from the first month
According to the company, 41 percent of Platform ONE customers used the agent for daily tasks. Users responded to 98 percent of critical alerts and recommended actions. In total, customers saved about 1,000 hours of troubleshooting. Interaction was roughly ten times what Extreme recorded for its first-generation conversational AI agent. Of the support cases opened through the Coworker, 58 percent already contained all the information the support team needed to begin resolution. According to Extreme, problems were solved within minutes; as a comparison, the company cites an industry average of two days. The release does not explain how this figure was determined, nor does it give the absolute number of customers or how the saved hours were calculated.
Extreme reads the high response rate as a sign that companies are ready for AI that detects network problems proactively and offers concrete recommendations. It should be noted that the rate only measures whether alerts were acted on, not their quality or actual benefit.
Experiences from the field
Kevin Rocha, CIO of Hill College in Hillsboro, Texas, says that with Platform ONE his team feels as if it had two or three additional network engineers. He describes a Wi-Fi outage in the human resources department. The agent reportedly pointed to one access point as the cause and to several pending firmware updates; fixing it took about 20 minutes instead of an entire morning. It also helped locate a device running cryptomining software on the guest network via the access points. Moshe Sittner of Touro University in New York says network teams can better understand which data and conclusions the answers are based on. Brent Addis, Group Security Architect at Extreme partner Fastcom in Auckland, notes that network, security and AI come together in one platform and that he no longer has to switch between consoles.
Nabil Bukhari, CTO and President of AI Platforms at Extreme, sees a limitation in the system design of dashboards and conversational AI. The agent, he says, acts according to the rules and within the limits that customers set.
Operator Mode planned for 2027
Extreme plans to release Agent ONE Operator Mode in the first half of calendar year 2027. It is meant to work autonomously within defined rules, respond to events in real time and carry out scheduled tasks without constant human guidance. The system is also meant to learn from every interaction.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de