Cisco’s Jeetu Patel Sets 24-Month Goal to Address 98% of Legacy Code

Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel says a two-person team is testing whether AI can help address 98% of Cisco’s legacy code within 24 months, with a four-week proof period to evaluate the approach.

The effort was proposed by Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, 27, known as Paddy. Patel said he found Krishnamurthy five levels below him in Cisco’s organization, in a role Patel described as “buried away in the organization doing something unstrategic.”

“I’ve given him unlimited tokens because he’s going to refactor code,” Patel said. The 98% figure is a target, and the proof period will test whether the approach can work.

Krishnamurthy co-founded EzDubs, which developed real-time AI translation for calls, voice messages and texts. Cisco completed its acquisition of EzDubs on Nov. 25, 2025.