The Capability Was Never the Problem
The capability was never the problem. Coordination is. Six years of working groups, roundtables, partnerships and research keep pointing at the same finding — and CASA26 in Amsterdam is built to test it.
The capability was never the problem. Coordination is. Six years of working groups, roundtables, partnerships and research keep pointing at the same finding — and CASA26 in Amsterdam is built to test it.
Three earnings beats in seventy-two hours, three completely different verdicts from the market. Seven weeks to CASA26 — and nobody’s bingo card survived the summer.
At CASA25, one of the most anticipated moments was the keynote by Andrew Collinson—our Research Lead and a telecoms veteran with nearly four decades of experience. With humor, honesty, and clarity, Andrew unveiled the findings of the State of CPaaS 2025 report, challenging the room to think differently about our industry—and inspiring them to act.
From the moment Andrew stepped on stage, he made it clear: this wasn’t going to be just another stats-filled presentation. “I wrote this report,” he said, “but you are the state of CPaaS.” The crowd, slow to respond at first, quickly caught his energy as he asked for a louder welcome.
That set the tone: CPaaS is not a static category. It’s a living, evolving ecosystem. And the people in the room—platform builders, telcos, developers, investors, partners—are the ones shaping its future.
Andrew admitted something few in the industry would dare say out loud: despite decades in telecoms and years running a research company, he didn’t really “get” CPaaS until this past year. “It’s a concept about concepts,” he said, “and the language we use to describe it often makes it harder, not easier, to understand.”
That led to one of the report’s strongest insights: CPaaS needs a new story. One focused not on acronyms and abstractions, but on outcomes, value, and transformation.
Through hundreds of conversations and dozens of case studies—many pulled from our Service Provider Playbook—Andrew developed a new frame for the industry:
“You are not just in CPaaS. You are in the business of Intelligent Engagement.”
This phrase, inspired by conversations with leaders at Infobip, Sinch, BT, Q Advisors, and many others, captures something essential. It reflects the shift from tactical tools (like SMS alerts) to strategic transformation (like AI-powered customer journeys).
“Intelligent Engagement,” he explained, is:
In contrast, the term CPaaS—even though it’s familiar to us—often loses customers in technical jargon. “If your pitch takes 5 seconds to decode, you’ve already lost the room,” Andrew warned.
One of the most powerful findings from the report: CPaaS isn’t just tactical. It’s increasingly strategic.
Across dozens of case studies, companies using CPaaS tools weren’t just solving communication issues. They were:
Scaling operations. Personalizing experiences. Building more adaptable, AI-ready businesses.
Strategic value—like improving agility or enabling growth—showed up more often than expected. It’s not just about better CX. It’s about building businesses that can evolve.
Much of this analysis was made possible by CPaaSAA’s Service Provider Playbook—a massive resource of over 90 real-world examples. Andrew read every case. Then he read them again. And again.
“The value is already there,” he said. “We just need to surface it.”
That’s why we’re launching the Case Directory—a searchable, growing library of CPaaS use cases, business outcomes, and quantifiable results. This is where strategy meets storytelling. And it’s one of our key tools to unlock faster growth and broader adoption.
The report outlines a clear evolution path:
Where’s the opportunity? Mostly at the far end of that curve. Businesses want insight-to-action loops. They want faster decision-making, more responsive operations, and tools that drive outcomes.
Everyone’s favorite question: is the $100B market real?
Andrew gave us three forecast scenarios:
Yes, that last one is possible. But only if the industry gets serious about:
As Andrew put it: “You sit at the intersection of cloud, telecom, and AI. You’re already growing at 21% CAGR. You have every reason to be excited.”
A key insight from the closing slides: CPaaS isn’t just competing with UCaaS or CCaaS—it’s encroaching on digital marketing and customer care.
This is the real prize. And CPaaS—if reframed as Intelligent Engagement—can go after it.
Andrew ended with a challenge to the audience:
Stop selling tech. Start selling outcomes. Don’t hide your value in jargon. Share your wins. Build a shared narrative that helps the whole industry grow.
The State of CPaaS 2025 isn’t just a research report—it’s an open invitation to every CPaaS provider, telco, and partner to evolve the story, raise the bar, and build the future together.
Everybody can download the full State of CPaaS 2025 report here.
Got a great use case? Help grow our industry’s collective evidence base. Reach out to contribute to the Case Directory.
Join our Working Groups and events leading up to MWC Barcelona to shape the next wave of CPaaS growth.
Let’s stop talking about CPaaS like it’s a product category. It’s a movement. And it’s time we act like it.
In a powerful and refreshingly down-to-earth keynote at CASA25, Sebastian Schumann of Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier pulled back the curtain on one of the most ambitious initiatives in European telecom: building a sovereign CPaaS platform, purpose-built for the wholesale market — and for a world increasingly defined by trust, sovereignty, and intelligent engagement.
This isn’t just another API platform. It’s a blueprint for how telcos can reclaim the CPaaS narrative, embed themselves deeper into enterprise value chains, and offer something that the tech giants simply can’t: control, compliance, and carrier-grade connectivity — at scale.
Deutsche Telekom’s CPaaS platform was born out of a hard regulatory reality. As Sebastian shared, their prior communications tech stack — hosted on a US-based hyperscaler — was abruptly deemed non-compliant for sensitive sectors like healthcare and government.
“We couldn’t even use infrastructure that belonged to the big US hyperscalers,” Sebastian explained. “So we built our own — in Europe, for Europe.”
This shift became an opportunity, not a setback. In fact, it became a key differentiator. European enterprises, especially in regulated industries, are increasingly demanding data sovereignty, local hosting, and compliance with EU laws like GDPR and Schrems II.
Deutsche Telekom’s new CPaaS platform is hosted completely within Europe, built with open-source components like SignalWire and Mation, and architected to be disconnected from third-country data jurisdictions.
It’s not just a product. It’s a position — one that’s uniquely valuable in today’s world of rising digital nationalism and privacy expectations.
What makes Deutsche Telekom’s approach stand out is their clear focus on building, not buying.
Their team assembled a CPaaS platform from the ground up, layering modern APIs on top of decades of core telco infrastructure:
And they’ve embraced developer-centric principles without falling into the telco trap of waiting on standards committees.
“We didn’t wait for the standards. We used what’s already the de facto standard in the market,” Sebastian said. “Real-world compatibility is more important than agreement by committee.”
To ease onboarding, they even offer compatibility layers for customers migrating from “the big guys,” allowing them to reuse existing integrations and switch endpoints without rewriting applications.
This isn’t about API counts or developer dashboards. Deutsche Telekom’s platform is designed to solve real customer problems, with a special focus on wholesale enablers and enterprise resellers.
In fact, Sebastian made a point to say:
“You don’t sell APIs. You sell what’s behind them — the capabilities. And really, you sell a solution to a problem.”
That’s why the platform includes a low-code integration layer, allowing customers to connect CPaaS capabilities directly into systems like Salesforce or other CRMs — without needing deep technical teams or external SI support.
Think of it like this:
You’re an enterprise who needs to trigger a voice notification from Salesforce You don’t want to hire developers Deutsche Telekom’s platform lets you drag and drop that integration as part of a managed service — fully hosted in a European sovereign cloud
This is what Intelligent Engagement looks like in practice:
CPaaS that starts with a use case, not an API spec.
Here’s where it gets really interesting.
Deutsche Telekom isn’t just offering CPaaS to large enterprise customers — they’re enabling other telcos to plug in their own trunks, white-label the platform, and run their own branded CPaaS on top of Telekom’s infrastructure.
It’s a multi-layered go-to-market model:
Serve direct wholesale traffic generators Enable partners and telcos to offer CPaaS under their own brand Offer full-stack capabilities: from local trunks and termination to CRM integration and billing
For smaller telcos looking to enter CPaaS or modernize their enterprise offering, this could be a fast track to market, bypassing years of development.
Despite the technical readiness and regulatory fit, the biggest challenge isn’t code — it’s culture.
“Educating our own salespeople was tough,” Sebastian admitted.
“They know how to sell SMS and voice — now we’re asking them to sell something that helps others sell voice and SMS. It’s a different mindset.”
And enterprise customers don’t always speak the language of CPaaS. They don’t ask for APIs — they ask for automation, web interfaces, and ways to simplify communication workflows.
This underscores the need for solutions storytelling, not just product specs.
Deutsche Telekom’s CPaaS initiative isn’t just a technical feat — it’s a strategic blueprint for European telcos looking to stay relevant in a cloud-first, AI-driven, privacy-sensitive world.
And most importantly, it does all this without waiting for the perfect standard or the next committee meeting.
“It’s not black and white,” Sebastian said. “But if you have the numbers, the routes, and compatibility — you’re in the game.”
At CASA25, Deutsche Telekom showed what’s possible when a telco leans into its strengths, learns from the platform players, and delivers value the European way — with control, compliance, and real-world business models.
It’s not just CPaaS. It’s CPaaS with purpose.
At CASA25, Mike Mills, Managing Director for Service Providers at Gamma, took the stage with one clear message: Voice isn’t dead—it’s booming. And if you’re serious about intelligent engagement, customer experience, or real CPaaS revenue, you can’t afford to ignore it.
Gamma doesn’t just talk about voice—they carry over 1.6 billion voice minutes a month into cloud platforms, work with 80% of Gartner Magic Quadrant CPaaS vendors, and deliver services in 50+ countries. With a 15-year track record of powering everything from SIP trunking to modern CX platforms, Gamma is a partner that knows the market—and the regulatory maze—better than most.
Mike offered a brutally honest assessment: compliance, fraud, and market complexity are getting worse—but the opportunity is only getting bigger. With CPaaS still seeing 11% CAGR growth even in worst-case forecasts (versus ~2% in traditional telco), the fundamentals are strong.
The big challenge? Most CPaaS players are either messaging-first or voice-first—rarely both. That leaves a major opportunity for those who can unify channels, deliver customer outcomes, and scale across borders.
Let’s cut through the hype. These aren’t concepts—they’re hard business cases showing how Gamma helps CPaaS providers grow revenue, reduce compliance costs, and go to market faster.
A global CPaaS provider needed to win big in the UK. Gamma helped them localize fully—from regulatory compliance to infrastructure—without downtime.
Lesson: Want to win globally? Deliver locally.
Another CPaaS player wanted to expand fast—30 countries, no compliance risk, and minimal operational overhead.
Lesson: Focus on your platform and growth. Let Gamma handle the telco headaches.
This one’s a game changer. A CPaaS vendor and their partner needed to integrate their platform with a UCaaS solution across multiple countries—seamlessly.
Lesson: Bridging CPaaS, UCaaS, and customer infrastructure isn’t just possible—it’s profitable.
Gamma is investing £10 million over 5 years into supporting CPaaS partners. Why?
As Mike said:
“If it’s not good enough to put a large enterprise on it, we generally don’t want to do it.”
Gamma’s recent acquisitions—PlayTell, Starface, and others—show a calculated expansion into cloud-friendly and high-growth regions like Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. Their strategy is clear:
Final Word: Voice Is the New Growth Engine
Gamma doesn’t see voice as legacy—it sees it as the foundation of modern, intelligent engagement. With real use cases, global reach, and a deep understanding of compliance and scale, Gamma is doubling down on helping CPaaS players succeed.
“It’s complicated. It’s getting more complex. But it’s not going anywhere.”
At CASA25, that’s not just a trend. It’s a strategy—and one Gamma is clearly ready to lead.
At CASA25, Boris Maric, Commercial Excellence Officer at Infobip, took the stage with a bold statement: “Conversations are becoming the operating system of customer experience.”
Not the interface. Not the channel. The operating system.
It’s a radical reframing—but one that cuts straight to the heart of what Intelligent Engagement really means in this next era.
And Infobip isn’t just theorizing. They’re building. Testing. Scaling. Pivoting. Because for Boris and the team, it’s clear: if we don’t evolve from messaging to orchestration, someone else will.
Infobip’s journey is grounded in a simple but powerful insight: conversations are now the homepage of CX.
What used to be done across websites, apps, and disconnected touchpoints is now collapsing into a single thread—literally. One WhatsApp conversation. One RCS flow. One smart agent that knows what you need before you ask.
It’s the convergence of three forces:
This shift means the interface shrinks and the backend complexity explodes. If you’re doing it right, the customer sees a single, simple thread. Behind it: orchestration, personalization, security, failover, and real-time data—powered by a blend of CPaaS infrastructure and generative AI.
Boris introduced a simple but compelling model: Trust, Guide, Act.
It’s not about “blasting messages.” It’s about embedding value inside a conversation.
And when all three align? “The interface shrinks.” One thread. One customer. One intelligent engagement.
Infobip’s current focus includes:
But Boris emphasized a critical next step: evolving from isolated use cases to agentic workflows.
This means AI doesn’t just support the flow—it becomes the flow. Taking action, triggering transactions, orchestrating across systems.
In a world where AI eats SaaS, that shift becomes existential.
Boris didn’t shy away from the elephant in the room. Growth is slowing. Margins are under pressure. AI isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a disruptor.
AI is disintermediating SaaS, allowing enterprises to build more in-house.
Ecosystems are gaining power, simplifying procurement and increasing stickiness.
Messaging is commoditizing, and unless CPaaS evolves, it risks being relegated to the plumbing.
To lead in this new landscape, CPaaS providers must:
In Boris’s words: “We need to take the orchestration part and lead the entire industry.”
Infobip’s framework to navigate this shift breaks CPaaS into three interconnected layers:
The future? Not just richer conversations, but conversational operating systems—fully integrated, intelligent, and outcome-driven.
Despite the vision, there are friction points. Boris didn’t sugarcoat them:
But there’s a path forward.
Start with use cases that work.
Build them with startups and risk-takers, not just enterprises.
Orchestrate across channels, data, and AI—and make it seamless.
Infobip sees two key accelerants ahead:
Agentic AI – to drive real-time, autonomous action CPaaS as the orchestrator – leading enterprise and telco transformation
And Boris left us with this clear call to action:
“We sit on a ton of data. We already have the infrastructure. The next battle is orchestration. If we win that, we win the future.”
Watch this space. The future of customer experience is being rebuilt—one intelligent conversation at a time.
This week, OpenAI’s CFO made a bold statement:
“SaaS will be disrupted by AI.”
It’s not just a throwaway comment. It’s a flashing red signal — and one that hits especially close to home for those of us in the cloud communications space.
We’ve spent the better part of two decades moving communications to the cloud — shifting from legacy systems to UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS platforms. We’ve built reliable, multi-tenant SaaS tools that serve millions of users. But here’s the reality:
The traditional SaaS model isn’t built for the AI-native era.
Generative and Agentic AI are changing how software gets built, consumed, and valued.
More and more enterprises are realizing that they don’t have to wait for vendors to “add AI features.” They can now build their own intelligent tools — customized agents embedded directly into workflows, trained on internal data, and deployed wherever they want: cloud, on-prem, or edge.
It’s faster, cheaper, more secure, and more aligned with how teams actually work. And it’s not hypothetical. This trend is real, and accelerating.
So where does that leave cloud comms?
For UCaaS and CCaaS players, this is both a threat and a wake-up call.
Most of these platforms are still architected around fixed workflows, static integrations, and multi-tenant control planes that were never designed for AI-native use cases. They’ve been good at incremental improvements — smarter IVRs, sentiment analysis, voice bots — but these are bolt-ons.
In the world of Agentic AI, bolt-ons aren’t enough.
We’re moving toward autonomous agents that can:
To enable that, you need control. You need data proximity. And you need an AI-ready architecture, not just an “AI-powered feature.”
If UCaaS and CCaaS platforms don’t evolve fast, they risk getting abstracted away — reduced to dumb pipes or passive UI layers as the real intelligence moves elsewhere.
Here’s where I think the opportunity lies — and it’s a hopeful one.
I believe CPaaS might just come to the rescue.
Why? Because AI agents — whether internal, customer-facing, or embedded — still need to communicate. They need to:
And that’s where CPaaS shines. It provides the foundational capabilities: programmable access to voice, messaging, video, authentication, and more.
But here’s the key: the value is shifting up the stack.
To stay relevant — and capture a bigger piece of the pie — CPaaS players must:
If they get this right, CPaaS won’t just survive — it could thrive. It could become the backbone of the AI-native communications layer, powering everything from agent-led CX to real-time, autonomous enterprise workflows.
While established players adapt, we also need to nurture and invest in the startups that are already building for this AI-native future.
The ones that:
These startups often struggle to get attention — or funding — because they sit at the intersection of two complex worlds: telco and AI. But that’s exactly where the disruption is happening.
We need to give them the capital, connections, and credibility to thrive.
This is not just about product innovation — it’s about rebuilding the entire comms stack for the next decade.
At CASA25 this September in Amsterdam, we’re devoting entire sessions to this shift.
We’ll explore:
We’ll also showcase real use cases, startup pitches, and practical strategies to move from theory to execution.
The question isn’t if AI will reshape cloud communications. It’s already happening.
The real question is: who will own the new layer of value?
UCaaS and CCaaS platforms need a rethink.
CPaaS providers have a chance to lead — if they evolve.
Telcos can step back into relevance — if they seize the AI and edge opportunity.
And the startups that bridge these worlds? They may end up defining it all.
Let’s make sure we’re not just reacting — but shaping what comes next.
—
📖 Read the OpenAI CFO article that inspired this post:
As Managing Partner at CPaaS Acceleration Alliance, I am honored to share the immense value of CASA24. This year, we are thrilled to see more service providers and technology companies joining us, representing the top players in the industry. What sets CASA24 apart is our unique combination of diverse companies, analysts, and media, creating a comprehensive platform for collaboration and innovation.
Reflecting on last year’s CASA23 event, it was humbling to be on stage and collaborate with everyone. CASA23 marked an incredible milestone for both CPaaSAA and the industry. The interaction and sharing among attendees and members were remarkable, establishing a culture of collaboration and industry advancement.
A Year of Growth and Innovation
Over the past year, we’ve witnessed tremendous growth among our members. The industry has evolved significantly, with more members offering more cutting-edge solutions. This transformation has opened up numerous key conversations around best practices, ethics, business models, and partnerships.
Critical Conversations
Amsterdam will be the epicenter for these crucial discussions this year. CASA24 will bring together leaders to drive these topics forward. Members from our Working Groups, who have been diligently working on these issues, will share relevant and timely insights, and we have an incredible lineup of strategic speakers from members and non-members alike.
Customer Experience (CX) Focus
At CASA24, we emphasize enhancing the customer experience (CX). We have a stellar lineup of top-notch speakers from across the industry who will provide valuable insights into CX innovations. These speakers are pioneers in their fields and bring a wealth of knowledge that will benefit all attendees.
Network APIs and Beyond
We’re also seeing incredible advancements with operators providing Network APIs, and our partnership with GSMA makes CASA24 uniquely positioned to gather all key perspectives in one place, fostering real, impactful conversations. There isn’t another event in the next six months that offers such a comprehensive platform for industry dialogue.
Why You Must Be There
Being part of CASA24 means being at the forefront of the CPaaS industry. It’s an unparalleled opportunity to learn, share, and contribute to the future of communications platforms. I look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam and continuing this journey of innovation and collaboration.
Onwards!
Kevin Nethercott
Managing Partner
CPaaS Acceleration Alliance