Can an AI Agent Work as a Network Engineer and Reset a Cisco Router Password?

When people discuss replacing IT staff with AI, network administrators smile and say: "That's not about my profession, a lot of it has to be done by hand." But what if you try AI on a real task?

Choosing the task

Generating configs and diagnosing problems from logs is too easy to be a meaningful test. A harder task was chosen: resetting a forgotten password on a Cisco router. This requires you to:

• Connect over a COM port (serial console)
• Reboot the router
• Catch a 15-second window and send the break signal (Ctrl+Break)
• Enter ROMMON (recovery mode)
• Load the configuration into memory
• Reset the password in the configuration file
• Save and reboot

This demands knowledge of specific timings, an understanding of the router's states and the ability to work with its file system.

The result

The AI agent succeeded. The model understood the sequence, controlled the COM port, monitored the router's output and adapted to unexpected responses. The agent did not just follow instructions: it reasoned about why certain steps were needed and adapted to the real hardware.

There were moments in the process when the model got confused by command syntax or misread the console output, but overall the agent showed that it can work with the "black magic" of networking.

What this means

AI will not replace a network engineer 100%, but it can take on routine, well-defined tasks. Resetting a password is one task out of a hundred. But if AI can automate it, it can probably also diagnose configuration problems, plan migrations and write scripts for bulk operations.

The question is not whether AI will replace the network engineer. It is which routine operations can be handed to an agent so the engineer can focus on design and optimization.