Cisco pursuing AI‑observability buys
Reports say Cisco is moving to acquire AI observability firms—coverage names Galileo as a target and says Cisco is in advanced talks for Astrix Security, a company focused on monitoring agentic AI. The pieces frame the activity as a push to bring agent and model observability into enterprise toolchains. Observability acquisitions could increase pressure to ingest agent behaviour and model‑interaction telemetry into platforms like Splunk ( | ).
Cisco is moving to buy one artificial intelligence monitoring company and is in talks for another, extending its push into tools that watch how AI agents behave. (blogs.cisco.com | crn.com) On April 9, Cisco said it intends to acquire Galileo Technologies, an artificial intelligence observability startup, for an undisclosed price. Cisco said Galileo will strengthen Splunk Observability Cloud and add real-time visibility and protection across the full agent development lifecycle. (blogs.cisco.com | crn.com) Cisco expects the Galileo deal to close in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2026, which ends in July, and said Galileo will operate independently until closing. Separate reports published April 13 and April 14 said Cisco is in advanced talks to acquire Astrix Security for $250 million to $350 million, though the companies may still fail to reach an agreement. (crn.com | crn.com | finance.yahoo.com) Artificial intelligence observability is software for checking what a model or agent did, why it did it, and whether the output was inaccurate, unsafe, biased, slow, or expensive. Cisco said teams now need more than classic signals like latency and errors, and Galileo’s platform tracks failures, hallucinations, security metrics, and cost and usage data in production. (blogs.cisco.com) Astrix sits on the adjacent problem: identity and access for non-human accounts used by bots, apps, and agents. Reports on the talks say Astrix’s software monitors and secures artificial intelligence agents and non-human identities across software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service environments. (crn.com | finance.yahoo.com) The timing runs through Splunk. Cisco completed its Splunk acquisition on March 18, 2024, and said the deal would give it broader visibility across customers’ digital footprints; Galileo is now being positioned directly inside that observability stack. (splunk.com | blogs.cisco.com) Cisco had already been buying around artificial intelligence security before this month. Cisco says Robust Intelligence was acquired in October 2024 and has become part of Cisco AI Defense and Cisco Foundation AI. (cisco.com) Galileo and Astrix are both venture-backed companies that raised $45 million Series B rounds in 2024. Galileo said its October 15, 2024 financing brought total funding to $68 million, while Astrix said its December 10, 2024 financing brought total funding to $85 million. (prnewswire.com | astrix.security) Cisco has confirmed only the Galileo transaction. On the Astrix talks, reports say neither Cisco nor Astrix responded to requests for comment before publication, leaving the second leg of this buying push unconfirmed for now. (blogs.cisco.com | crn.com)
