When Partners Lead with AI, Everything Changes: Meet Cisco's 2025 Partner Innovation Challenge Winners

[ad_1] At Cisco Companion Summit 2025, we introduced the winners of Cisco’s eighth annual International Companion Innovation Problem, and this 12 months proved one thing we’ve lengthy believed: if you give sensible companions an open platform and actual buyer challenges to resolve, they don’t simply meet the second. They redefine what’s attainable.

With $1 million USD in prizes and a record-breaking 40 % improve in submissions from 26 international locations, this 12 months’s problem demonstrated that our accomplice ecosystem isn’t simply adopting AI. They’re main with it. The outcomes? College students get psychological well being assist earlier than a disaster hits. Wasted renewable power powers AI workloads. Returned merchandise stays out of landfills. Clinicians get real-time affected person intelligence with out lifting a finger.

2025’s Excellent Winners International Grand Prize: Deal My Time ($250K USD)erlySense transforms scholar assist from reactive to proactive. Constructed on the Cisco ecosystem, this AI-driven wellness intelligence platform integrates safe networking, AI insights, and real-time collaboration instruments to create a steady security web for college students. By empowering counselors and educators with real-time insights and environment friendly communication, erlySense permits early intervention, serving to college students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally earlier than challenges turn out to be crises.

In an period the place scholar psychological well being is a nationwide emergency, erlySense turns know-how right into a lifeline.

International 2nd Place Award: KIW ($100K USD)Splid.AI solves two huge issues directly: the skyrocketing demand for AI compute and the large waste of renewable power on account of grid limitations. This sustainable AI market converts unused renewable power into distributed AI compute energy, connecting surplus inexperienced power producers with enterprises needing AI processing. By leveraging Cisco AI PODs and safe, containerized infrastructure, Splid.AI permits high-performance AI workloads to run the place and when renewable power is accessible, turning wasted power into gas for AI innovation.

The consequence? AI progress that truly accelerates sustainability as a substitute of undermining it.

International third Place Award: Denali Superior Integration ($50K USD)Denali ReLo tackles a problem most customers by no means see: the mountains of returned merchandise that find yourself in landfills as a result of handbook processing is just too gradual and costly. This AI machine-vision software leverages a visible language mannequin skilled to establish key traits of every returned merchandise, automating the subjective decision-making strategy of how and when to type and restock. Cisco networking merchandise mixed with Splunk, Cybervision, and SEA ship an answer that scales to assist huge retail operations.

Denali ReLo retains extra product in circulation and out of landfills. Good for enterprise, higher for the planet.

Synthetic Intelligence Award: EVERYANGLE ($200K USD)Horizons Retail AI transforms Cisco Meraki MV Cameras, Cisco Areas, Webex, and the Cisco Observability stack (AppDynamics, ThousandEyes, Splunk) right into a unified platform for real-time revenue optimization. However right here’s what units it aside: In contrast to analytics instruments that simply present you dashboards, Horizons deploys autonomous AI brokers that repeatedly sense situations, interpret context, and act. They reallocate workers, optimize campaigns, forestall shrinkage, all with out requiring further {hardware}. For retailers, QSR operators, and client manufacturers working at scale, this isn’t simply visibility. It’s clever motion that improves margins, labor effectivity, and buyer expertise in actual time.

That is agentic AI fixing actual enterprise issues, proper now, at scale.

Companion for Goal Award Winners Our Companion for Goal awards acknowledge options that don’t simply drive enterprise worth. They make the world measurably higher.

Environmental Sustainability Award ($25K USD): Morgan Photo voltaic for Vitality BlindsPhotovoltaic inside window remedies that rework areas, enhance occupant consolation, and ship power financial savings with payback intervals as brief as two years. Powered and managed by way of Cisco PoE networks.

Environmental Sustainability Award ($25K USD): KIW for Splid.AIConverting wasted renewable power into distributed AI compute energy, turning a sustainability downside right into a useful resource for AI innovation.

Disaster Response & Human Wants Award ($25K USD): EchoStor Applied sciences for Pleasant WhisperAn AI-powered voice assistant for clinicians that gives real-time, context-aware affected person summaries by means of earpieces or cell gadgets. Saves time, reduces errors, and eases burnout in healthcare.

Disaster Response & Human Wants Award ($25K USD): Iron Bow for SignalPointIntegrating disconnected hospital and campus emergency methods into one seamless workflow with superior location companies that may triangulate 911 callers inside 5 meters. Serving to first responders arrive sooner and with better accuracy.

What This Means for You When you’re a accomplice questioning the place the chance is, that is your reply.

Take a look at erlySense serving to college students earlier than disaster hits. Take a look at Splid.AI turning wasted renewable power into AI compute. Take a look at Denali ReLo holding returned stock out of landfills. Take a look at Horizons deploying autonomous AI brokers that act, not simply analyze. Take a look at Pleasant Whisper giving clinicians real-time intelligence with out including to their cognitive load. Take a look at SignalPoint serving to first responders save lives with five-meter accuracy.

The AI period belongs to the companions who can react rapidly to market shifts, innovate repeatedly as a substitute of ready for annual cycles, and scale effectively by activating platform capabilities clients didn’t even know have been attainable.

Congratulations to all our winners. You’re not simply constructing options. You’re proving that after we transfer quick collectively, innovate repeatedly, and scale by means of ecosystem results, we don’t simply compete within the AI period. We lead it.

For extra info on the International Companion Innovation Problem and learn how to take part in subsequent 12 months’s competitors, go to Cisco’s International Companion Engineering on SalesConnect.