Ana Cabrera grew up in Denver in a Mexican-American family, one of five children. She attended Washington State University on a track and field scholarship and graduated summa cum laude. She began her broadcasting career as an intern at Denver stations KCNC and KMGH. From 2005 to 2009, she anchored and reported at KHQ and KAYU in Spokane, Washington.

Cabrera then returned to Denver as morning anchor at KMGH, earning an Emmy for her team’s 2012 High Park fire coverage. CNN hired her in 2013 as a Denver-based correspondent. She covered the Ferguson protests and the Canadian Parliament shooting, then became the anchor of CNN Newsroom on weekends in March 2017. She also hosted two presidential town halls and added a weekday afternoon hour in May 2021.

Cabrera left CNN in December 2022 and joined MSNBC in April 2023, anchoring the 10 a.m. hour of MSNBC Reports. In May 2025, her block grew to two hours, and the network became MS NOW that November. In March 2026, she announced she was leaving the network. She said the decision was her own, and her final show aired on June 12, 2026.