Beyond the Buzz: How Agentic AI Will Transform Trust, Identity, and the Customer Journey
At CASA25, amid the intense discussions on network APIs, GTM models, and CPaaS monetization, one panel stood out for its mix of raw honesty, technical depth, and forward-looking pragmatism: Agentic AI — Consent, Identity & Trust.
Moderated with humor and curiosity by Kyle Nel of Sandbox Industries, this panel cut through the AI hype and tackled the hard questions: What really makes AI “agentic”? How do enterprises get started without getting lost? And how do we prepare humans — not just machines — for the agentic era?
Here are the highlights and takeaways from the session featuring:
- Kyle Nel (Sandbox) – Moderator, venture investor, AI outsider-turned-ally
- Adnan Saleem (Radisys) – CTO of Software & Cloud Solutions
- Mark Castleman (Intel) – Ecosystem lead for AI and deep tech
- Olaf Wallaart (CM.com) – Lead Data Scientist, Agentic AI platform
- Remco Magielse (GLBNXT) – Startup founder tackling the “proof of concept to scale” gap
🔁 From AI Hype to Agentic Reality
Kyle opened the discussion with a simple question: “Who here is actually using agentic AI?” A few hands went up — but more had used AI in their personal lives. As he noted, the consumer world is once again leading the enterprise, signaling what’s to come.
But as Olaf Wallaart pointed out, most organizations are still trying to figure out the basics — how to write a proper prompt. The magic agent that handles everything on its own? “It doesn’t exist,” said Castleman. “You need a hundred agents, each tuned to a specific outcome, with checkpoints along the way. It’s a recipe — not a single ingredient.”
Agentic AI isn’t just a smarter chatbot. It’s the orchestration of intelligent agents capable of executing tasks, calling APIs, and interacting with other systems. But the infrastructure of most businesses — especially telcos — is still too fragmented, siloed, and legacy-heavy to support this at scale.
🎯 Where to Start: Low Complexity, High Impact
Remco’s team uses a simple framework to assess use cases: map complexity vs. impact. The goal? Find the “wow” moments — high-impact wins that are easy to implement and explain on a single slide.
“You don’t want safe,” he said. “You want something that gets people to go: Whoa, this changes how we work.”
Adnan echoed the point: “Don’t aim for sci-fi agents yet. Start with low-hanging fruit that improves productivity, then build from there.” Internal tools — like secure ChatGPT-style assistants — are often the best starting point.
🧠 AI Literacy Is the New Digital Literacy
The panel agreed that a huge part of the challenge is human, not technical. We’ve spent decades teaching people to write short keyword queries. Now, we must teach them to write long, rich prompts — to treat machines like collaborators, not search engines.
Olaf shared how CM.com formed an internal AI team tasked with helping every department identify their top problems — then co-create solutions. “They become like a beacon of AI, promoting ideas, showing what’s possible, and building internal momentum.”
Training helps. Practice is better. And curiosity is the ultimate success signal.
“Curious people engage deeply,” said Castleman. “Transactional ones don’t. Look across your org — who’s asking better questions? Those are your early adopters.”
⚙️ Infrastructure, ROI, and the Spaghetti Stack
Agentic AI reveals the cracks in enterprise systems. Legacy platforms, dirty data, and siloed infrastructure become instantly visible when you try to automate tasks end-to-end.
Castleman explained it through the lens of ROI: the cost per token per watt changes radically based on the task. Complex reasoning needs exponentially more compute — and therefore more budget. That’s why enterprises freeze: they can’t yet model the risk of going below-zero on ROI.
“The agent is the chef,” he said. “But you have to account for the entire supply chain behind each ingredient. And if the recipe isn’t worth the cost, you kill the project.”
🤝 Telcos: From Dumb Pipes to Agentic Enablers
The final part of the panel tackled the telco opportunity. As Castleman put it bluntly: “In the old app era, telcos lost because they tried to figure out the apps instead of enabling them. This time, they need to expose all the little levers and let the agents go wild.”
Agentic AI breaks apps down into atomic functions. Telcos and CPaaS players sit on a goldmine of these functions — but they must make them available as APIs that agents can trigger.
Identity, trust, and consent become key. As Olaf noted, telco networks have something unique: reliable identity. That’s a massive asset in an era where bots can imitate humans — and vice versa.
🧪 Final Words: It’s About Agency — Not Just AI
The last round of the panel shifted from tech to philosophy.
“If done right, AI gives us back our agency,” said Olaf. “We get to build quickly without begging for budget. We get to focus on what’s fun and impactful.”
AI might reduce cost. But the panel’s message was clear: it’s about productivity, creativity, and revenue growth — not just optimization.
And it’s about people. Give them tools. Train them. Let the curious ones lead.
Because in the end, agentic AI isn’t just software. It’s a shift in how we work, build, and think.
