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.

🤝 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.

Insights from Gamma, Sandbox Industries, and Intel at CASA25

When you put a telco CEO, a venture capitalist, and a technology investor on the same stage and ask them to “fix telco innovation,” you don’t expect consensus.

At CASA25, Nicolai Schaettgen (Match-Maker Ventures) did just that—casting Mike Mills (Gamma) as the telco CEO, Dan Phillips (Sandbox Industries) as the corporate shareholder, and Mark Castleman (Intel) as the tech and investment veteran.

The result was an unfiltered reality check on why innovation in communications keeps stalling—and what needs to change.

1. The innovation illusion

Telcos, Mills admitted, know where they want to go—but can’t always find how to get there.

“We know our strategy. We know the direction. What’s missing is finding capabilities that aren’t mainstream—investing where one plus one can become three.”

For years, telcos have poured money into “innovation” through corporate venture capital (CVC) arms, incubators, and R&D labs. But the hit rate is abysmal.

Why? Because most telcos still apply improvement logic to innovation problems.

2. You can’t get ice cream from a meat grinder

Castleman, who’s raised hundreds of millions as a founder and investor, put it bluntly:

“Large systems like telcos are designed to improve what they do, not to deviate. Every output is the perfect output of that system. If you want something different, you need a different system.”

Innovation, he argued, means deviation, not optimization. You can’t expect a compliance-driven, quarterly-report-focused machine to suddenly start taking moonshots.

“You can’t put ice cream ingredients into a meat grinder and expect ice cream,” he joked. “You need a different system.”

The reason most corporate venture units fail is because they’re still tethered to the parent company’s antibodies—its incentives, KPIs, and politics.

3. Why telco CVCs don’t work

When Schaettgen asked who would still set up a corporate venture fund, none of the panelists raised a hand.

Castleman:

“If I’m not in the business of making bets, how am I suddenly going to succeed at venture investing? Better to put that capital into professional funds that already have access, insight, and deal flow.”

In other words, invest in the investors.

Don’t pretend to be one.

For telcos, the goal isn’t financial return—it’s access to innovation.

That access can be achieved far more effectively by becoming a limited partner (LP) in specialized funds or joining curated ecosystems—like the CPaaS Acceleration Alliance—where visibility, not ownership, creates advantage.

4. What shareholders actually want

Phillips, representing the shareholder view, described the telco dilemma succinctly:

“My focus is growth and margin. My frustration is that telcos build the infrastructure, but others capture the 90 percent gross margins and giant exits.”

To many investors, telcos look like annuities—slow-growth, dividend-paying utilities.

When those companies start putting cash into “high-risk, low-promise” innovation bets, shareholders see it as their dividend being spent.

The smarter play?

Spread smaller investments across a wider ecosystem. Gain visibility into innovation rather than trying to control it.

“What you really want is clarity so you can reduce your five-year risk horizon,” Castleman said. “Spread visibility of access—not ownership.”

5. What it takes to absorb innovation

Even if telcos partner with external innovators, success depends on internal readiness.

Phillips warned that without structure and leadership commitment, innovation dies in the middle:

“There needs to be organizational buy-in from the CEO down, and a process for working with startups—or scaleups. Otherwise, things stall after a few pilots.”

That means:

Dedicated processes for contracting and onboarding smaller partners (not the same RFP that takes three years for a core system). Clear KPIs for pilots—defined outcomes, time limits, and ownership. Different language—talk about scaleups and tech partners, not startups. The word alone is a red flag in boardrooms.

Mills agreed:

“The clash between telcos’ need for scale and compliance and a startup’s need for speed is very real. Managing that cultural challenge is hard—but necessary.”

6. Startups: grow up

The other half of the problem lies with the innovators themselves.

Castleman reminded founders that working with a telco isn’t a playground—it’s mission-critical infrastructure.

“If your network goes down for minutes, you can calculate churn by the minute. Startups need to stop acting like startups and start acting like grown-ups.”

Innovation doesn’t mean chaos. The goal isn’t to stay a startup forever—it’s to mature fast enough to meet enterprise-grade standards.

As he quipped:

“A six-year-old startup is a startup that’s been failing for four years.”

7. The CPaaS angle: sell outcomes, not features

Finally, the conversation turned to the CPaaS perspective.

Castleman reframed how platform players should approach telcos:

“If I’m a CPaaS player, I’m going to go to the telco CEO and say: I understand your outcome. I’ll help you achieve that with X percent more growth. Let’s define it together and hold me accountable.”

This is the opposite of a typical tech pitch—no laundry list of APIs, no “400 tools to help you do more.”

It’s co-creation around measurable outcomes.

And it’s exactly how intelligent engagement and network-API ecosystems need to evolve.

8. The CASA25 takeaway: change the system

Schaettgen closed the session by thanking the panel for the candid discussion—and for playing along with his “role-play therapy for telcos.”

The verdict was unanimous:

Stop building CVCs that mimic VCs but operate like procurement departments. Invest in visibility through specialized funds and innovation alliances. Build internal processes that can actually absorb external innovation. Speak the right language—scaleups, not startups; outcomes, not ideas. Remember: innovation isn’t about tweaking the machine. It’s about building a new one.

Epilogue: From CASA25 to CASA26

The conversation at CASA25 echoed a growing truth across the industry: the future belongs to ecosystems that can learn faster than any single company can innovate alone.

As capital, cloud, and communications continue to converge, the winners will be those who stop guarding the gate—and start opening it.

A new collaboration to unlock industry-wide impact through targeted investments and customer-backed innovation.

At the close of Day One at CASA25, as the lights dimmed and attendees leaned into what they thought was the final moment, one more thing took the stage.

Kevin Nethercott, Managing Partner of CPaaS Acceleration Alliance, and Chris Zock, Co-CEO of Sandbox Industries, made it official: a new strategic partnership between the Alliance and Sandbox has commenced — aimed squarely at driving innovation in the communications industry through targeted collaboration.

A Shared Vision for Impact

Since its inception, CPaaSAA has challenged its members to think beyond today—to ask not only how to grow, but how to shape the future. As Kevin put it during the announcement:

“We’ve talked for years about how we can make a real impact on the industry. About how we ensure the startups that don’t even exist today become our biggest customers in 3–5 years. This partnership with Sandbox is how we make that future possible.”

The partnership is built on more than capital—it’s about aligning strategic problems with entrepreneurial solutions, and doing it in a way that’s tailored to the realities of regulated industries like telecoms.

Why Sandbox?

Sandbox Industries has deep roots in complex, regulated markets like healthcare and insurance. With over 20 years of experience, their model has centered on forming coalitions of corporates with shared challenges and goals—then matching them with the right startups and scaleups, and investing in ways that create real alignment.

Chris Zock summarized their approach simply:

“We help companies in highly regulated industries achieve their strategic goals—primarily by helping them harness innovation. And we do that by pairing capital with customers and backing it with deep domain understanding.”

One example Chris shared was a startup that went from $500K to over $1B in recurring revenue in seven years—precisely because it was backed not just by funding, but by a community of engaged customers who helped it learn, scale, and refine quickly.

Now, Sandbox and CPaaSAA aim to apply the same strategic engagement model to the world of cloud communications, CPaaS, and telco innovation.

Not Just Another Venture Fund

Unlike generalist tech VCs chasing the latest AI or API buzzword, Sandbox and CPaaSAA are aligned on a different mission: solving real strategic problems with startups that can scale within and across telcos, service providers, and enterprise communications ecosystems.

“When Chris started talking about solving strategic issues—not just funding cool AI tech—we knew we had found the right partner,” Kevin noted. “This is why we built the Alliance in the first place.”

The partnership isn’t focused on chasing trends. CPaaSAA and Sandbox aim to serve as a catalyst for transformation—supporting companies that can partner with CPaaSAA members to solve their top challenges in customer experience, go-to-market models, security, AI, and more.

What Happens Next?

Over the coming weeks, the joint CPaaSAA-Sandbox team will begin discussions with members interested in learning more about the partnership. Chris issued a simple invitation during the session:

“If this sounds like a good fit for your organization, we’d love to have a one-on-one call. Come with your top 3 strategic challenges—what you’d love to solve with the right entrepreneurial partner. From there, we’ll share more details and explore where we can go together.”

Kevin closed the announcement with a call to action for the entire CPaaS community:

“We believe this is how we create real, lasting impact. This isn’t just about funding startups—it’s about helping all of us become more relevant to our customers, and shaping what the next 100 years of communications looks like.”

Join the Movement

As the industry evolves from cloud-first to AI-native, and from APIs to intelligent engagement, CPaaSAA’s partnership with Sandbox represents a strategic leap forward—bringing new tools, new partnerships, and new opportunities to everyone in the ecosystem.

Members and partners interested in learning more can reach out directly to schedule a conversation. And if you missed the fireside chat—don’t worry, we’ll be sharing video highlights and updates in the coming weeks.

Because the future isn’t just invented. It’s invested in.

And with the right partners, it’s accelerated.