Two days on stage at the Tobacco Theater, on one subject: what happens to communications when intelligence arrives. Intelligent Engagement is the term CPaaSAA coined for that shift — connectivity to conversation to intelligence to insight — and the programme runs as a single argument in three parts. Intelligence: what the market actually is, and where AI is already shipping and being paid for. Trust: who can be trusted to carry it. Transformation: what it takes to move.
Canal Boat Networking
Investors, founders and operators on a boat, with no pitches and no running order. Sandbox hosts, and the point is the conversations that are hardest to arrange anywhere else. Book it when you get your ticket — capacity is limited, so add it early. If your plans change, go back to Eventbrite and add it later, or release your place for someone else.
The State of Intelligent Engagement
What actually shipped and got paid for in the last twelve months, and what that says about where value is moving: connectivity to conversation to intelligence to insight. This is the frame for both days and the yardstick for everything after it — you should leave knowing which claims to take seriously and which to discount.
Rob Kurver — Founding Partner, CPaaSAA
Intelligent Engagement, One Year On
She built her CASA25 keynote around intelligent engagement before the term had travelled. A year on: what has actually changed inside companies that already own a communications stack they have paid for, and what it took to move them. The practical version of a transformation story, including the parts that did not work — and the frame the rest of the two days is measured against.
Neelam Sandhu — Founder, NS Executive Advisory
Where the Money Actually Went
He ran commercial at a CPaaS at scale before advising the operators trying to capture the same value, so he has watched the same budget decision from both sides of the table. Where AI spend is actually landing, which programmes survive their first renewal, and what separates the ones that reach the P&L from the ones that stay in innovation. Specific about the pattern, not the vendor.
Ivan Ostojic — Partner, McKinsey & Company
Outside In: Where the Architecture Question Is Being Settled
Where intelligence runs, who governs it and who owns the layer above the model are being settled now, and mostly outside Europe. An outside-in read on decisions already taken in the US and Asia, and what those close off for everyone else. You will leave with a clearer view of which architectural choices are still genuinely open to you.
Leonard Lee — Executive Analyst & Founder, neXt Curve
Closing the Telecom Intelligence Gap
AI and the era of Cognitive Communications are introducing profound changes to how humans communicate. As the value of voice migrates from the connection to the conversation, the industry landscape will be redrawn — creating both generational opportunities and existential threats. This session explores the structural and architectural gaps that will decide who stands to win, how other industries closed similar architectural gaps, and what the equivalent looks like for network operators and the AI developers building intelligent communications solutions today.
Brian Beutler — Founder & CEO, Alianza
The Investor View: Competitors Who Co-Invest
Two investors who compete for the same deals and still write cheques together. How that works in practice, why it started in healthcare, and what an operator should take from a model built on shared risk rather than exclusivity. Relevant if you are weighing a corporate venture arm against partnering with people who already have one.
John Banta — President & MD, Blue Venture Fund/Chris Zock — Co-CEO, Sandbox Industries
Network APIs, AI and Navigating New Territory
Network APIs and AI are converging faster than either roadmap assumed. What that means for a platform that has to sell both, to enterprise customers who want neither in the abstract and both in a working product. A candid account of what gets built, what gets shelved, and how a large CPaaS decides between them.
Kunal Shukla — SVP & GM Network Powered Solutions, Vonage
Four Futures for Intelligent Engagement — and What Has to Be True
Four scenarios for where intelligent engagement lands by 2030, each with the conditions that would have to hold for it to happen. The analysts make the case, then the room votes — and the result comes back on Tuesday afternoon after two days of argument. You leave with a framework for testing your own plan against the futures the market is pricing in.
Andrew Collinson — Founder & MD, Connective Insight chairs/Raúl Castañón — Industry Analyst, 451 Research/Amy Cameron — Director Research, STL Partners/Nick Lane — Founder & Chief Messaging Officer, Mobilesquared
AI Voice from the IMS Core
AI voice services running inside the IMS core. Real-world deployments, the numbers behind them, and what changed operationally once it went live. For anyone weighing whether voice intelligence belongs in the network or in an application layer above it — or both.
Ralph Page — Sr Sales Director EMEA, Radisys
Voice Intelligence at Scale
A model company and a national operator on the same stage, with the thing running live rather than described in slides. What breaks at scale, what it costs to keep running, and which assumptions from the pilot did not survive production. The honest version of a deployment story.
Leander Zapheriou — GTM, ElevenLabs/Otto-Jan Woltjer — Portfolio Manager Mobile & UC/Voice, KPN
What Do You Charge For Intelligence? Pricing the Shift from Conversation to Insight
Everyone agrees value is moving up the stack. Almost nobody has changed their price list. A pricing specialist chairs while three vendors explain what actually goes on the invoice when conversation becomes insight, and where margin is genuinely available. The only session in two days that takes pricing head on — bring your own questions.
Žiga Lešnik — Partner, Simon-Kucher chairs/Ricard Chramer — Founder & CEO, Meetric/Daniel Morris — CPO, Sinch/Adnan Saleem — CTO, AI & Communications Technology, Radisys
The Big Blender
Twenty minutes to set up the block. The categories the industry sells by — UCaaS, CCaaS, CPaaS — are being blended into something that does not have a name yet, and the analyst who has tracked those boundaries longest explains what is actually mixing, what falls out, and which companies are exposed when the labels stop meaning anything. The two CEOs who follow him respond to it, and he chairs the argument at the end.
Dave Michels — Principal Analyst, TalkingPointz
Mind the Gap: Who Captures the Margin When AI Rewrites Customer Experience
The vendor you are watching is probably not your real competition any more — the more interesting threat comes from companies that did not exist eighteen months ago and started from a workflow rather than a category. Which raises the question nobody demos: who captures the margin once AI reshapes customer experience, and what does anyone actually charge for? Seats and minutes are giving way to tokens, to outcomes, and to models that do not have names yet. Nobody ever asked to buy UC, CC or CPaaS; buyers want resolution, revenue, trust and a lower cost to serve — and the business model has to follow that, not the org chart.
Sam Wilson — CEO, 8x8
Commercialising Sovereign AI Communications
Every business is about to get an AI, and every operator network will carry it. The question is who owns the customer, the conversation and the revenue. The real barrier is no longer building an AI demo — it is turning one into a trusted, integrated and billable service at telecom scale. How service providers can commercialise sovereign AI communications on the infrastructure they already own, under their own brand, and turn a network advantage into growth.
Daan de Wever — Co-Founder & Group CEO, Dstny
When the Categories Collapse
UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS have stopped describing what anyone actually buys. What replaces them, who loses when the labels go, and what happens to the companies named after them — including the consolidation that usually follows. Four platforms with skin in the game, no opening statements, and a chair who will not let them agree.
Dave Michels — Principal Analyst, TalkingPointz chairs/Sam Wilson — CEO, 8x8/Daan de Wever — Co-Founder & Group CEO, Dstny/Kunal Shukla — SVP & GM Network Powered Solutions, Vonage/Jesper Larsson — Head of Strategy & M&A, Sinch
Day One Close
Five minutes to pull the day together before drinks — what the arguments had in common, and what to listen for tomorrow.
Rob Kurver — Founding Partner, CPaaSAA
Day One Party — TufTuf Club
Off-site at TufTuf, and the point of the evening is the room rather than the programme. Everyone from both days is there, and most of the useful introductions happen after the first drink.
Welcome Back
Five minutes to set up the day: what Monday established, and the two questions this morning has to answer.
Rob Kurver — Founding Partner, CPaaSAA
What a Network API Business Looks Like Past the Pilot
Network APIs as a business rather than a product line, from the operator that has committed hardest to it. What has been built, what enterprises are actually buying, and how the commercial model differs from selling connectivity — the view once the pilots are behind you and the revenue has to show up.
Aoife Condren — CMO, Proximus Global
Mobile Network APIs: Signals of Value
Eighty-two executive interviews, forty-six operators and thirty-nine channels assessed, eleven stakeholder groups and seventy-plus deployments analysed. What the research found, the several big stories inside it, and the actions that would actually unlock the mobile network API market — the headlines from a project spanning the entire industry, with STL Partners comparing and contrasting against their own forecasts and findings. The insights behind the arguments in the rest of the block.
Andrew Collinson — Founder & MD, Connective Insight/Miriam Sabapathy — Sr Consultant, NaaS & NW APIs lead, STL Partners
The $25 Trillion Blind Spot: Turning Network Intelligence into Retail Revenue
Open Gateway deployed in retail at scale, with the consent question addressed on stage rather than left to the legal annexe. How the deployment was sold internally, what the retailer got out of it, and where the friction actually was. A worked example rather than a market sizing.
Paulo Fodor — Founder & CEO, Vydens
Enterprises Don’t Buy APIs. So What Is the Industry Actually Selling?
Enterprises buy outcomes they can price, not endpoints. So what is on the invoice, and who signs it? Two operators, a retail deployment and the verification layer work through what the industry is actually selling, to whom, and at what point a network capability becomes something a buyer will pay for. Crafted by GSMA Open Gateway.
Amy Cameron — Director Research, STL Partners chairs/Johanna Wood — Director Network APIs Global, Vodafone/Ievgen Martsin — VP Product, Proximus Global/Paulo Fodor — Founder & CEO, Vydens/Volkan Kaya — Founder & CPA, WeVerify
Who Is Actually Calling: Network Signals in Production
Caller identity checked against live network signals, on stage. The provenance problem stated plainly and then demonstrated — what the network can prove about a call, what it cannot, and what that is worth to an enterprise drowning in spoofed traffic. A live demo, not a walkthrough.
Mark Harvey — Chief Identity Officer, XConnect/Matt Salisbury — CEO, Honey Badger HQ
Conversations Are Becoming Records. Who Pays, and Who Has to Comply?
Consented, portable, auditable — and increasingly required. Recording, retention and consent are already line items for anyone running regulated conversations, so the question is not whether this gets paid for but what changes when the record becomes portable and provable: who carries the cost, and who carries the liability. Two companies building it, two who have to live with it, and a chair who will ask what any of it is actually worth.
Dean Bubley — Principal Analyst, Disruptive Analysis chairs/Jon Brinton — CRO, Crexendo/Kevin Nethercott — CEO, Tresic/Mike Mills — Business Director, Gamma/Richard Atherton — Head of Contact Product Management, BT
Nobody Negotiates Their Way Out of Being a Supplier
Scarcity, risk and demand. Why suppliers stay suppliers, what that position actually costs over time, and the three things that change it. Ten minutes to open the afternoon and frame the argument about capital and ecosystem.
Rob Kurver — Founding Partner, CPaaSAA
The Operator View: Getting Things Done Inside
How anything actually moves inside a large organisation, from someone who has sat on both sides of that table. Where proposals die, who has to be convinced first, and what a founder or partner should do differently. Practical rather than inspirational, and specific about the sequence.
Shilpa Strong — Independent Board Director, ISC/Dan Phillips — Partner, Sandbox Industries
Network Signals, Sovereignty and Cross-Industry Collaboration
Where operators partner instead of acquire, what data residency does to the architecture, and which network signals are worth sharing across an industry boundary. Three operators who each believe the network should hold what matters — a German wholesaler that built its own CPaaS, a French incumbent that pooled its APIs with competitors, and an Asian carrier — against a challenger platform that has just declared itself the orchestration layer in the middle and is selling that position to all of them. The question is not whether the data moves. It is who gets to sit between the parties, and whether an operator can ever be that party.
Dean Bubley — Principal Analyst, Disruptive Analysis chairs/Jacqueline Hennessy — Sr CPaaS Product Manager, T-Wholesale/Otilia Anton — Director Orange LiveNet, Orange/Ardian Atmaja — VP Product Innovation & Development, Telin/Kevin Dundon — Chief Strategy Officer, Alianza
The Founder View: Working With Corporates
Selling into, partnering with and surviving a large corporate, from the founder’s side. How long it really takes, what a pilot is actually worth, and which corporate signals mean something. The other half of the ecosystem conversation, and useful in both directions.
Andrea Reynolds — CEO, Swoop/Jeff Carroll — Partner, Sandbox Industries
Shark Tank
Not the Showcase Challenge, and not a demo. Founders pitch the business: how much they are raising, what the money buys, and why this team in this market. The judges push back the way investors actually do — on the size of the ask, what it gets spent on, how it comes back, and what the company is worth — and the negotiating happens in front of the room rather than afterwards in a side room. Most founders never get to watch somebody else answer these questions. That is half the reason to sit in.
Format. Three founders. Eight minutes each to pitch, then five minutes of questions from the judges. No deliberation, no scoring and no winner — this is a conversation with investors in public, not a competition.
Chris Zock — Co-CEO, Sandbox Industries chairs/John Banta — President & MD, Blue Venture Fund/Otilia Anton — Director Orange LiveNet, Orange/Wendhyharto Kusumaatmadja — Group Head Digital Initiative, Telin
PitchingShabeer Puthukkudi — Core Cognitics/Janne Timonen — LastBot/Amir Kotb — Telkoa
What the Room Believes: Intelligent Engagement in 2027
Monday’s vote, read back after two days on stage, by the analyst who ran it. What the room believed on Monday morning, whether the arguments in between moved it, and what that implies for the next twelve months. Twenty minutes, and the one session where the audience’s own view is the subject.
Andrew Collinson — Founder & MD, Connective Insight chairs/Amy Cameron — Director Research, STL Partners/Raúl Castañón — Industry Analyst, 451 Research
The Year Ahead
Thanks to the speakers and sponsors, the CPaaSAA calendar for the year ahead, and where CASA27 goes. Five minutes on what these two days changed and what to watch between now and next September.
Rob Kurver — Founding Partner, CPaaSAA
Drinks, Food and Expo
Proper food, not just crisps, and two hours to finish the conversations the programme started. The expo stays open throughout. At 19:00 it ends and the rest of the evening is yours — home, bed, or a pub, depending on your flight.
GSMA Telco Roundtable and Open Gateway Forum
A closed, GSMA-run day for operator champions, working through Open Gateway implementation in regional clusters. Technical alignment between operators rather than a vendor conversation. Details go to invited participants.
This page is kept up to date as speakers, sponsors and travel plans change, so times and line-ups may move. Check back nearer the event for the final running order. Speaker names link through to full profiles. Every session and event in the programme is covered by our Code of Conduct.