Juniper Networks drove WiFi 6 and its recent Mist artificial intelligence (AI) updates up and down its access point (AP) lineup with four new APs targeted at different vertical markets.

The new models include the “extremely high-performance” AP63 targeted at harsh outdoor environments; the merely “high-performance” AP33 and AP32 models targeted at small enterprise offices, retail sites, and school campuses that differ only in the latter having location service support; and the AP12 model that has a wall plate form factor targeted at home offices, dorm rooms, and hotel rooms.

Christian Gilby, senior director of product marketing for Juniper’s AI-Driven Enterprise business, explained that the new products expand the reach of what has been its flagship AP43 device. That model launched last year, and it was the first to employ both WiFi 6 and the Mist AI platform.

“It allows us to extend across more verticals, more use cases,” Gilby said of the new products.

Gilby also explained that due to ongoing work displacement tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, some companies are holding off on bringing employees back into the office, which is providing them time “to go and update the technology in the office.”

The products also play into two WLAN market segments that have shown robust growth in light of the ongoing pandemic. Dell’Oro Group earlier this year reported that the cloud-managed WLAN market posted a more than 20% year-over-year increase in revenues, and that customers were also changing their spending mix toward lower-priced products.

“As the pandemic spread through Asia, Europe, then North and South America, enterprises turned to cloud-managed capable network equipment to get thousands or tens of thousands of remote workers connected to the network. The amount of interest in being able to perform deployment and management tasks remotely shot up,” wrote Tam Dell’Oro, wireless LAN analyst at Dell’Oro Group. “We observed a mix shift to lower-priced products, such as those suitable for remote workers which have fewer features and capabilities than those suitable for a sports stadium or office buildings.”

The new products also tap into updates Juniper announced late last month. Those included adding SD-WAN and virtual assistant capabilities to its Mist AI operations.

The updates allow Mist to use its AI capabilities to glean insights from clients connecting over wireless, LANs, and now WANs. This allows IT teams to quickly get to the bottom of network disruptions by using Mist’s AI to identify which connection method is causing the issue.

Juniper also integrated its Marvis virtual assistant platform into its SD-WAN offering to make it completely interactive. The vendor explained that the integration helps customers identify anomalies and suggest solutions.

It also uses insight that can drill down to the client level to provide a more comprehensive view of an organization’s SD-WAN system. Juniper said this allows the service to compete more directly against Cisco’s Meraki and Hewlett Packard Enterprises’ (HPE) Aruba platforms that are limited in the depth of their observability.

Juniper had previously noted that its Mist platform was seeing an 80% win rate in the market against the Cisco product.

Juniper’s Mist business continued to see strong growth during the vendor’s most recent quarter. Juniper reported that Mist orders increased 170% year over year and new logos increased by more than 100%.