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Juniper doubles down on AI as HPE deal faces scrutiny
Juniper’s ANZ chief highlights strong enterprise adoption of the Mist networking platform, with AI-powered automation delivering cost savings and operational benefits for customers
Juniper Networks is pressing ahead with its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven enterprise strategy, even as its proposed acquisition by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) faces opposition from the US Department of Justice.
Sujai Hajela, executive vice-president for Juniper’s AI-driven enterprise division, claimed its technology has been well received by the market. “The largest enterprises on the planet have adopted the Juniper Mist network to lead their digital transformation, to lead their ability to leverage AI to help with their network operations,” he said.
“If you look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant for wired and wireless, we continue to be on the topmost and the rightmost, which means the market is clearly recognising our innovation and scale as we bring these things to the market,” said Hajela.
He explained that Juniper’s AI-Native Now platform is built on three key pillars: collecting the right data via high-quality telemetry across the network; having the right infrastructure to digest that data; and triggering the right responses by using AI and machine learning models to make sense of the data, for example, to understand why a user might be experiencing pixelation during a Zoom call.
“If you were to ask any of the Juniper Mist customers, they will always say two things,” said Hajela. “Number one, in very simple terms, the network just works. And number two, it’s a huge reduction in number of trouble tickets which they experience – upwards of 90%.”
Focusing on the local market, Bruce Bennie, vice-president and general manager for Juniper Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), said the company is addressing three key issues faced by organisations in the region.
The first is providing better experiences for employees and customers through the simplification and automation of networks. This shifts the focus beyond traditional connectivity checks – “is there a connection?” – towards evaluating the quality of the user experience – “are users getting a good experience?”
Cost of business
An allied issue is lowering the cost of business by using AI. “Skills are very hard to find, particularly in networking,” said Bennie, adding that in terms of salaries, Australia “is a high-cost country for various reasons”.
He suggested that AI offers organisations an alternative to outsourcing, giving them the opportunity to bring back capabilities they would have normally handed off to an IT service provider. Bennie cited automating tasks like managing access points via the Juniper Mist platform as an example.
Juniper intends to “double down on that messaging”, extending its AI focus beyond wireless LANs to include the company’s wide area network (WAN) and security portfolios, he added. “The AI engine that we have is going to be pervasive across all of our platforms,” said Bennie, claiming this will let Juniper customers manage their entire networks from a single pane of glass.
Addressing the significant datacentre growth in Australia, he observed interest from organisations in using this additional capacity to repatriate workloads from public clouds. “It’s still early days in Australia, but we’re seeing that very much take hold in America … and hopefully Australia will follow suit,” said Bennie.
Another trend is the growing interest in private AI datacentres. He said banks and other organisations are exploring AI usage while wanting to avoid the risk of proprietary data leakage into the broader marketplace. “We’re seeing a lot of interest and discussions around that” in Australia, said Bennie. In both datacentre scenarios, he added that the automation and capabilities of Juniper Mist will help lower costs and enhance in-house capabilities.
Looking ahead for Juniper ANZ through the remainder of 2025, Bennie said “we’ve already got our plans set and our people sorted”, adding that the company’s traditional service provider business remains strong, with significant interest also coming from the healthcare, education and finance sectors. “Anywhere we see large, complex networks that are customer-serving, we’re seeing a lot of interest in what we are offering,” he said.
Bennie predicted that AI capabilities will widen and deepen across Juniper’s product range, and that the company will increase its focus on its security portfolio.
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Regarding the unpredictable international trade situation, he said “tariffs are never a good thing”. However, Bennie feels Juniper is well-positioned due to supply chain diversification undertaken during the Covid-19 pandemic. While prepared to review supply chains if necessary, “at the moment we’re not doing that because nothing has changed”, he said.
Bennie also stressed that the fundamental problems Juniper solves persist regardless of economic conditions. “My customers are still looking to provide a better service and reduce the cost of operating those services,” said Bennie. “So, the actual fundamentals don’t change”, whether there’s a recession or not.
“Our customers are looking for change, innovation and a better way to do what they’ve been doing for the last 10 years,” he added. “And I think that’s the reason why we are winning McDonald’s [in the US]. We are winning a whole bunch of local customers like the City of Parramatta and some of the Catholic colleges because they see this as a better way … so I don’t think that’s really going to change, regardless of the economic environment.”
Other named local customers include Moorabool Shire Council, the Islamic College of Melbourne and My Muscle Chef.
Bennie highlighted the potential scale of savings, using the McDonald’s US deployment as an example. Across more than 13,000 locations, Juniper’s automation allows a small team to perform network management tasks that previously required around 100 staff, freeing employees for higher-value work.
“I think the fundamental premise of any technology is if it’s innovative and it gives you a better outcome, then it’s worth the investment,” he said. “And the reason why we are winning so many opportunities and we have got that interest is because people are seeing that benefit.”
