AI agents currently can exchange messages and identify tools to perform tasks, but they lack the ability to truly understand each other’s intents and contexts. Cisco’s Outshift is addressing this gap with a new concept called the Internet of Cognition, which introduces a semantic layer to enable agents to share goals and reasoning, not just data. This approach involves cognition state protocols for shared intent, a cognition fabric as distributed memory to maintain context, and cognition engines to pool insights and enforce rules. Without this shared understanding, multi-agent systems operate in silos, leading to inefficiencies and coordination struggles. Outshift emphasizes that achieving seamless semantic collaboration among AI agents will require industry-wide standards and cooperation, and they are actively developing protocols and demonstrations to advance this vision.
Back
