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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Cisco Systems (CSCO): A Steady Performer Among the Dogs of the Dow
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is included among the 11 Dogs of the Dow Dividend Stocks to Buy Now. A technician in a laboratory, overseeing cutting edge cybersecurity solutions. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is widely recognized for its networking, cybersecurity, software, and cloud computing solutions. It produces routers and switches that use the Internet Protocol to move data across networks. Artificial intelligence has become a major growth area for Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), with AI-related revenue exceeding $1 billion in 2024. Cisco aims to at least double that figure in 2025. A key factor in this expansion has been its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk, completed last year, which is intended to strengthen customers' capabilities in networking, security, and AI. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) reported strong earnings in its fiscal Q3 2025. The company's revenue came in at $14.15 billion, which showed an 11.4% growth from the same period last year. The revenue also beat analysts' estimates by $91.4 million. Orders for AI infrastructure from webscale clients surpassed $600 million, allowing the company to hit its $1 billion goal a quarter ahead of schedule. This strong performance in AI is driven by the strength of its secure networking solutions, strong global alliances, and the value it consistently delivers to customers. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) generated an operating cash flow of $4.1 billion during the quarter, and it returned $1.6 billion to investors through dividends. In addition, it has raised its payouts for 18 consecutive years. Currently, it offers a quarterly dividend of $0.41 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.39%, as of July 26. While we acknowledge the potential of CSCO as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Founded On Technology Innovation, AT&T Is Charting A Data And AI Future
AT&T How does an iconic American company that has been synonymous with technology innovation for nearly 150 years prepare to grow and thrive in an AI future? This is the question that I posed to Andy Markus, Chief Data and AI Officer at AT&T, a company that was essentially founded in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. For nearly a century and a half, AT&T has been a pioneer in technology innovation. Markus joined AT&T in 2020, having held technology leadership and transformation positions for leading media companies including WarnerMedia, Turner Broadcasting, and Time. In his role as Chief Data and AI Officer at AT&T, Markus supports the consumer and business lines of the $122b (as of the end of 2024) company, as well as back-office functions ranging from finance to legal to HR. 'We're responsible for developing and executing the data and AI strategy and governance for the firm' notes Markus. He adds, 'The big hat we wear is execution. We work across the firm horizontally to help all parts of the business. We solve their challenges with a data and AI first mindset.' The scope of responsibility of the Chief Data and AI Office is magnified by the size and the scale of data that AT&T manages. AT&T has a long history working with AI, dating back to pioneering work at Bells Labs, the former R&D arm, which was renowned for its groundbreaking innovations, including the invention of the transistor in 1947. Bell Labs revolutionized modern electronics and computing and played a pivotal role in the early development of AI. 'AT&T has a very rich history with AI. I like to use the line from Hamilton – 'we were in the room where it happened'. AT&T was right there when the term artificial intelligence was created' comments Markus. He adds, 'We have a rich history of technology innovation at AT&T. We recently ranked sixth in U.S. companies with AI patents and continue to turn out a considerable volume of intellectual property resulting from generative AI and agentic AI.' As has been the case during its long history, AT&T continues to pioneer technology innovation, now using AI. 'AI is a core part of the AT&T mandate and how AT&T runs its businesses' says Markus. 'We still have the spirit of Bell Labs.' He adds, 'It's remarkable that we're one degree removed from somebody that worked with John Tukey, the legendary Bell Labs mathematician and statistician that I studied in school.' The emergence of generative AI and agentic AI in the past few years has been accelerating transformation within AT&T. Markus notes, 'We recognized that generative AI would bring AI to everyone. Instead of having AI being run exclusively by technical people, we are creating a general-purpose AI that can apply to areas where we have never used AI before.' AT&T currently runs over 600 traditional Machine Learning and AI models in production across the firm, cutting across many lines of business. Markus explains, 'Where we were leveraging traditional or classical AI to run the business, now we're integrating every part of the firm and reimagining the things that we can do using generative AI.' Generative AI is also being employed by AT&T to help manage its data. 'Data functionality using generative AI is great for complex analytics. We are working with hard, complex, messy data sets' notes Markus. He continues, 'When we apply generative AI technology to a curated data product, the accuracy skyrockets. Generative AI technology enables us to do things that are at human level or actually exceed what can be done at a human level.' Markus adds, 'We are building on a foundation of being great with data, great with classical or traditional AI, and now great with generative AI and agentic AI. Each element builds off each other and complements each other'. He notes that AT&T has created over 2,000 generative AI use cases that have been submitted for internal reviews. Delivering business value from AI is central to the business mandate of AT&T. 'An AI first mindset starts with understanding the business needs' notes Markus. He continues, 'Once we understand what these needs are, we work to automate processes and make the lift lighter for the development community so that they can do their work faster.' Markus adds, 'Our partners in the business are truly the experts at creating a business case. Whatever you do, you've got to integrate with existing systems. We help evaluate the cost of the solution and then we work to help understand the benefit and that's where we really work hand-in-hand our business partners.' The AI use cases that AT&T is developing cut across the firm. Markus notes that the very first thing that AT&T did was to bring together the risk organizations of the company -- legal, compliance, privacy and security – to develop a unified approach to govern how the company should invest and execute in AI capabilities across the organization. He continues, 'We partnered with the business units to create a transformation program for this new era of AI'. AT&T has established a transformation office which reviews each use case for its business value to the organization. Markus adds, 'We prioritize our use cases and work on those that will have the most value for the company, working closely with the CFO office.' The result of these efforts is that AI is driving business value for AT&T across business lines. In one example, AT&T has developed a complex fraud detection system. Markus explains, 'Your phone is a very expensive piece of equipment. The bad guys want to find a way to get your information that's on it.' He continues, 'To address this, we created a very complex fraud detection system with well over 30 models, both generative AI models and traditional AI models, that protect customers from fraud.' AT&T is also using AI to manage robocalls. Markus comments, 'When I started with AT&T, one of the top complaints from our customers were robocalls. At this point, by using AI we're detecting these earlier and blocking them.' AT&T is also applying AI to deliver business value through its Ask AT&T platform. Markus explains, 'One of the areas where we've been successful in using generative AI to take human language and turn it into computer language and do complex analytics is with our Ask AT&T platform.' He elaborates, 'At the very beginning of generative AI, we saw that generative AI was going to touch all of our employees, so we created a formal AI policy.' Over 100 thousand employees and contractors now have access to the Ask AT&T platform. Markus adds, 'We are leading the pack in using AI to drive value. We do it in a very measured way across the firm.' Another example is dispatch optimization. AT&T operates one of the largest vehicle fleets in the United States, comprising over 50,000 vehicles and over 700 million possible routes on a given day. The company has developed an AI application that optimizes the dispatch process. Markus notes, 'The benefit of the application is good for society because by being very efficient, we're saving carbon emissions. We now have over 100 million pounds of emissions saved since we started this program by reducing the miles driven. We don't always need to send technicians to homes when people call in. We've used AI to become much smarter on how we solve issues proactively, which saves a technician dispatch in many situations.' Managing data as a business asset is core to the success of the AI transformation taking place at AT&T. 'There is an enormous amount of data that flows over the AT&T network every day – close to 900 petabytes of data that come over the network every day', says Markus. He explains, 'Our data must be safe and secure. We have this concept of a data product, which in our view is a curated set of raw data.' Markus adds, 'We need to do the right thing with how we manage our customer data to fully adhere to regulations and to drive business value for the company and our customers.' For most organizations, and particularly century-old companies, transformation and change is seldom an easy proposition. The greatest challenges that these firms face almost always relate to the business culture and readiness of an organization to adapt. Markus notes, 'Culture is one of the driving factors for us. It is where many organizations get stuck.' He elaborates, 'We are a 150-year-old company, so inevitably there will be some parts of the business that ask whether they can really benefit from leveraging AI.' To address some of the cultural challenges, AT&T has established AI training programs so that employees can start to understand how AI can augment their daily activities. AT&T now has employee education programs where 50,000 employees have completed AI training, and new trainings are continually being added. Markus notes that support for AI starts at the top, explaining, 'We have strong top-down support, beginning with our CEO, John Stankey. He has been a great leader, a coach and a person that evangelizes that AI is a technology we are going to embrace as a company.' While leadership from the top of the organization is essential, Markus notes that support at all levels of the company is required to ensure successful adoption of AI. AT&T is preparing for an AI future. This entails staying abreast of the latest AI capabilities, including agentic AI. Markus explains, 'Agentic AI is connecting together a workflow that actually could be deterministic, to break down bigger problems into smaller problems that can be solved more accurately, while having the ability to take action as part of the workflow.' He adds, 'People often try to make agentic AI sound like more than it is, but it really is breaking down the big problem and smaller problems so you can solve these more accurately with the ability to take action based off of your decisions.' Looking to the future of AI at AT&T, Markus observes, 'There's a lot of hype around whether there will be value coming from our AI investments. I think everyone's seeing that the technologies we're working with such as generative AI and the evolution of this into agentic AI are going to change things.' He comments, 'As we talk about the benefit of generative AI, for every dollar we invested, in that same year, we returned 2X ROI. This was free cash flow impacting ROI from multiple year business cases. A 2X return is going to grow to a run rate that contributes to AT&T's overall run-rate savings target of $3 billion by the end of 2027.' Markus continues, 'What's different this time is that we don't see the wall as we have with other technology evolutions, where you had a general idea of where the where the end was going to be while you're in the middle of it. In the case of AI, I don't think we see this wall yet. The wall keeps moving, if there even is a wall. That is something that I think is super exciting to be a part of.' He concludes, 'AT&T is an exciting place to work because the scale and complexity of our data is extremely unique. We see adoption across the board in using and reimagining how we do our work with an AI and data-driven mindset as a way to get to the next stage. We have business teams that you would never expect to be learning how to use AI that are doing so. They are chomping at the bit, knocking on our door to ask how they can be using AI to deliver better products and services to our customers. That's a great place to be!'
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
At JPMorganChase, AI Innovation Is An Operating Committee Mandate
JPMorganChase What distinguishes artificial intelligence (AI) leaders from AI followers? A recent survey reported that 89% of Fortune 1000 companies recognize that artificial intelligence (AI) will be the most transformational technology in a generation. Love it or hate it, AI is inevitable. Organizations will need to adapt or risk falling behind. JPMorganChase (JPMorgan), the largest U.S. bank with origins tracing back over 225 years to 1799, is seizing upon the moment with a forward-looking long-term vision for AI, which is articulated in the company's mission for the future and embodied at all levels of the organization. This commitment to embracing AI is evident in the composition of the firm's 14-member Operating Committee, where Teresa Heitsenrether occupies a prominent position as chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) for the firm. JPMorgan is at the forefront--very few Fortune 1000 organizations have elevated the CDAO to an operating committee role. I recently hosted Heitsenrether on an industry panel of data and AI leaders, and follow up conversation. We discussed her leadership role at JPMorgan, and how the company is planning for and executing on its long-term vision for AI as a tool for innovation and industry transformation. A career JPMorgan veteran, Heitsenrether is responsible for establishing the data and analytics strategy as well as driving firmwide adoption of AI across lines of business. Having served as a line-of-business leader, most recently as the Global Head of Securities Services, Heitsenrether understands that AI leadership begins with a business strategy that recognizes, first and foremost, that AI is a technology tool which must deliver business benefits and business value to the company and to its customers. She explains, 'Coming from the business gives you a different lens. Having been at the firm for my whole career, I have a good perspective on the businesses and what's most important to them.' While some organizations think of AI as a technology issue—47% of CDAOs report into technology functions—a growing percentage of companies—36%--see AI as a business function that should report to the seniormost business leadership of the firm. JPMorgan exemplifies this shift to a business focus and mandate. Heitsenrether explains, 'AI is 100% a business issue. We have to begin with an understanding of our business objectives; where we want to grow, where we want to be more efficient, what markets we want to enter, what products we want to create; and then how, where, or if AI can be an enabler for this.' She continues, 'We always think about our AI and data agenda in the context of the business's broader strategic objectives.' Heitsenrether adds, 'AI in search of a problem is a bad strategy.' Establishing an AI and Data organizational culture remains an obstacle for most leading organizations--just 32% of organizations say that they had achieved this outcome and only 37% report having created an AI and Data driven organization–people and cultural issues being identified as the greatest impediments to successful business adoption. Leadership begins from the top of the organization at JPMorgan. Heitsenrether explains, 'We have a leadership team that has long recognized the importance of AI. The tone from the top really does matter in setting the expectations for the organization. When you do that, and you're clear, it permeates the organization.' Heitsenrether continues, 'I firmly believe that the advances we are seeing through AI are going to fundamentally change the way that we do business, and the scale and the scope at which we can do things. The fact that we created this corporate function for data and AI reflects how transformative we think this will be.' Business transformation requires cultural adaptation and changes to behavior and processes within any large and complex organization. Heitsenrether explains, 'You really need to think about how transformation it going to be introduced; what else changes in the organization; how do you roll out new capabilities to our customers.' She adds, 'I think there is a very deep culture within JPMorgan of continuous improvement. We're always looking at who the disruptors are and how we can do things better. Technology is a great enabler.' Adoption of new technology and new business processes represents a challenge for any organization. Heitsenrether explains, 'We've been very intentional about putting GenAI into the hands of all our employees. We are doing this through an internal platform we developed called LLM Suite. I think this has been a great cultural shift for the organization.' Heitsenrether continues, 'We didn't set a mandate that our people have to use the new AI platform, but they quickly discovered the benefits. Now, over half of our employees use the platform in their daily work.' She continues, 'We're still in the early stages. It has been both bottom-up ideas combined with a top-down perspective focused on the biggest areas of opportunity for our business and for our customers.' AI is on a path toward long-term adoption across JPMorgan. Heitsenrether comments, 'We are now understanding what's possible with AI technology.' She adds, 'As is often the case with new technologies, there's the 20% that are the early adopters, who become your ambassadors. They start learning how to use the new technology–in this case AI--and encourage and show others how to use it as well.' 'There's a natural curiosity', explains Heitsenrether. 'Everyone will try the new AI technology, but the challenge is making it applicable to what our employees do in their daily jobs.' She continues, 'Having AI ambassadors within the business help colleagues understand how to use AI to be more effective creates a next wave of adoption.' Delivering business value from data and AI investments remains a challenge for most organizations. Just 24% of companies surveyed reported having implemented AI in production at scale, and only 18% claimed to be delivering a high degree of measurable business value from their data and AI investments. Heitsenrether comments, 'We've already seen business value in a number of domains, including fraud management, pricing and risk management.' She continues, 'Generative AI opens new domains that weren't available before. An example is in our software engineering life cycle. We're also looking at using AI in customer coverage in our call centers.' Heitsenrether adds, 'We are using AI to help our agents better understand the customers intent, to provide customer answers quickly, and deliver a great service outcome.' She concludes, 'The best way to retain customers is to keep them happy' says Heitsenrether. Great data is the foundation for great AI. Heitsenrether explains, 'What's really shifting is the lens with which business leaders look at data. They recognize that data is a strategic asset for their business.' She elaborates, 'One of my biggest learnings in the last two years has been the importance of data. You have to have a good data foundation. Having access to clean, understandable data is critical to our success.' Heitsenrether notes, 'We run a very large financial services firm that's highly governed, so the fact that the business runs smoothly each and every day speaks to the quality of our data.' She concludes, 'The next wave in having good data will be making sure that our data is well understood and connected across the organization.' AI technology represents the culmination of seventy years of development, dating back to the origins of the term artificial intelligence–45% of companies have been employing forms of AI technology for at least a half decade, and in some cases for over a quarter century. Looking toward an AI future, Heitsenrether comments, 'I don't think that the expectations of AI are unfounded or overestimated. If anything, we may be underestimating what's going to be possible.' She continues, 'What we are realizing is that it's not just about the technology. It's about the enterprise's ability to adapt the technology, not just within financial services, but even more broadly across industries.' Heitsenrether continues, 'You have to know where you're heading. Our most senior leaders will be able to start thinking about remapping their businesses. That's just getting underway in earnest at this point. This will require a lot of thought and is an iterative process that starts with thinking about what's possible.' Reflecting on her tenure with the firm and her present mission, Heitsenrether notes, 'I've run a lot of big businesses at JPMorgan, with significant technology and operations components, so I understand how to execute through complexity. I also think having been responsible for running businesses helps me be a better partner to our business leaders who have many demands on their time.' She continues, 'At JPM, we're committed to being a leader in AI technology and that means we need everyone across the firm thinking about how they can maximize the use and value of AI. You need to be constantly learning. That message reaches people at all levels of the organization and becomes understood in the overall success of the firm and of your business.' In summation, Heitsenrether comments, 'It's been an honor to be in the CDAO seat at JPMorgan. The role is so strategically important to the future of the firm. It's an exciting moment, at a pivotal time. We are creating the culture, creating the guardrails, creating the policies, and creating the enablers.' 'AI will be transformational in ways that we haven't even thought of. It's not just about JPMorgan. We are doing something that is beneficial for our clients and our community, and we are doing it in the right way' continues Heitsenrether. She concludes, 'Our ethos is to Make Dreams Possible for everyone, everywhere, every day–AI technology can help with this by driving better outcomes for our customers. It's enormously exciting and beneficial.'
