Imagine walking into your office on a Monday morning. You grab a coffee, settle into your chair, and open your laptop, only to find the Wi-Fi not working, your CRM tool struggling to load, and video calls dropping in quality. Frustration sets in. A network engineer is alerted, diving into logs and running tests, but the issue remains a mystery for hours. This scenario is common, but now, AI-driven network operations are solving this problem.
Bengaluru-based Juniper Networks, which has a team of 4,000 employees, handles the complete product lifecycle, from concept to development, testing, and deployment.
In an exclusive conversation with AIM, Sajan Paul, area vice president and country manager of India and SAARC at Juniper Networks, said, “Seven years ago, before AI had even become mainstream, we saw its potential in automation. We knew that managing massive networks would soon be beyond human capability alone.”
Paul, a key leader in this AI-driven shift, likens the journey to teaching a child. “You train a child, and in an appropriate environment, they should behave as taught. AI is no different. We’ve built large models and refined them through seven generations, and today, we achieve over 90% efficacy in our AI-powered network solutions,” he explained.
He further mentioned that their AI systems don’t just process data; they turn decades of network expertise into real-time, actionable insights. A problem that was solved 10 years ago should never need to be solved again. AI ensures that by contextualising past solutions and proactively addressing similar issues before they occur.
AI in Networking
AI’s role in networking has evolved through three key stages. The first is the recommendation phase, where AI suggests solutions, but human engineers still make the final call. Next comes the automation phase, where AI takes over routine tasks, significantly reducing manual interventions.
Finally, the ultimate goal is self-driving networks, where AI detects, analyses, and resolves issues before they impact users.
Paul noted that they are in the seventh generation of AI maturity, with intelligent automation spanning our entire product portfolio. Global companies, from ServiceNow to some of the world’s largest IT, healthcare, and manufacturing firms, rely on Juniper Networks to power their operations because, in today’s hyper-connected world, downtime is simply not an option.
The Meesho Story
AI isn’t just about individual user experiences; it plays a crucial role in ensuring businesses stay up and running without disruption.
For instance, Meesho, one of India’s leading e-commerce platforms, has a vast network of outsourced customer service agents handling queries in seven languages. The company needed a high-performing, AI-driven Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solution to support its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications, especially during peak call times. Their business depended on it.
Thanks to AI, Meesho not only improved call volume and retention rates but also built a service-centric network that fuels business growth.
Ismail Mohideen, director of IT at Meesho, mentioned that Juniper’s AI-driven SD-WAN solutions have not only increased call volume and retention rates but also built a service-centric network that fuels business growth. This partnership brings them closer to democratising internet commerce while improving customer satisfaction.
AI-powered automation ensured that their customer service centres stayed online, call quality remained flawless, and agents could assist sellers and buyers without interruptions, no matter the time of day.
What’s Next?
One of the biggest challenges in network troubleshooting is catching problems before they escalate. Traditionally, engineers would wait for an issue, scramble to capture logs, and analyse data after the failure, often missing the critical moment. AI changes the game entirely. It continuously monitors network health, detects anomalies instantly, auto-captures logs before a failure happens, and sends real-time data to engineers for immediate action.
The results speak for themselves: a 90% reduction in trouble tickets, solutions deployed were nine times faster, and an 85% decrease in operational expenses. Every network device Juniper deploys now comes embedded with an AI agent, functioning like the Siri or Alexa of network management, working quietly in the background to ensure near-zero downtime.
So, AI-driven networks are no longer just a vision; they are already here.
