HPE is extending its AI-powered networking automation across its hybrid cloud portfolio, Rami Rahim, president and general manager of HPE’s networking business, said after visiting Australia last week. Rahim, formerly CEO of Juniper Networks, said HPE’s “self-driving networks” use AI-assisted monitoring and automated fixes, an approach within AIOps (using AI to operate IT systems). He estimated that 70 to 80 percent of network trouble tickets already need no human intervention and predicted that within two to three years no issues would require people, apart from hardware replacements.

Rahim said failed hardware could be replaced through an automatic process: the system would order a part and an intern could attach it, with the remaining steps handled automatically. Asked why network administrators should trust automated advice, he compared growing acceptance of AIOps with people adopting self-driving taxis after earlier experiences with automatic transmissions, cruise control and lane assistance. HPE lets operators enable automated actions feature by feature; Rahim cited rebooting a switch port as a simple task to start with.

Rahim said HPE measures automation by the number of tickets about poor Wi-Fi and how quickly they are resolved. He called poor Wi-Fi the most common enterprise complaint, while noting that the underlying cause could be an application outage, a WAN issue or a cloud provider problem. AI agents, he said, can identify Wi-Fi problems faster than people and help fix them. He argued that organizations will need reliable networks for AI agents as well as human workers, and said companies cannot expand human teams enough to manage the connections as networks grow.

Rahim said HPE’s networking portfolio and AI capabilities are stronger since the company completed its acquisition of Juniper in July 2025. HPE has continued selling Wi-Fi access points that originated with Aruba and Juniper, and customers can now manage them with tools from either vendor; Rahim said this became possible within 18 months of the acquisition closing. He also said HPE had integrated network fabric management with OpsRamp, its hybrid cloud observability software, and plans to bring more Juniper-originated self-driving network technology across HPE’s portfolio. Responding to CEO Antonio Neri’s description of HPE as becoming a networking company, Rahim said networking is increasingly important to the industry and to HPE, including in AI data centers, where it is as important as computing.

HPE is extending its AI-powered networking automation across its hybrid cloud portfolio, Rami Rahim, president and general manager of HPE’s networking business, said after visiting Australia last week. Rahim, formerly CEO of Juniper Networks, said HPE’s “self-driving networks” use AI-assisted monitoring and automated fixes, an approach within AIOps (using AI to operate IT systems). He estimated that 70 to 80 percent of network trouble tickets already need no human intervention and predicted that within two to three years no issues would require people, apart from hardware replacements.

Rahim said failed hardware could be replaced through an automatic process: the system would order a part and an intern could attach it, with the remaining steps handled automatically. Asked why network administrators should trust automated advice, he compared growing acceptance of AIOps with people adopting self-driving taxis after earlier experiences with automatic transmissions, cruise control and lane assistance. HPE lets operators enable automated actions feature by feature; Rahim cited rebooting a switch port as a simple task to start with.

Rahim said HPE measures automation by the number of tickets about poor Wi-Fi and how quickly they are resolved. He called poor Wi-Fi the most common enterprise complaint, while noting that the underlying cause could be an application outage, a WAN issue or a cloud provider problem. AI agents, he said, can identify Wi-Fi problems faster than people and help fix them. He argued that organizations will need reliable networks for AI agents as well as human workers, and said companies cannot expand human teams enough to manage the connections as networks grow.

Rahim said HPE’s networking portfolio and AI capabilities are stronger since the company completed its acquisition of Juniper in July 2025. HPE has continued selling Wi-Fi access points that originated with Aruba and Juniper, and customers can now manage them with tools from either vendor; Rahim said this became possible within 18 months of the acquisition closing. He also said HPE had integrated network fabric management with OpsRamp, its hybrid cloud observability software, and plans to bring more Juniper-originated self-driving network technology across HPE’s portfolio. Responding to CEO Antonio Neri’s description of HPE as becoming a networking company, Rahim said networking is increasingly important to the industry and to HPE, including in AI data centers, where it is as important as computing.