Despite more than a decade in the business lexicon, Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) still sits in a grey zone for many executives. Awareness can be high, yet understanding of its strategic potential remains patchy. Too often, discussions are dominated by “speeds and feeds”, the technical capabilities of programmable communications, rather than the tangible outcomes they enable.
As Neelam Sandhu, CMO of Vonage, observed at this year’s CPaaS Acceleration Summit Amsterdam (CASA 2025):
Too often, we speak in ‘speeds and feeds,’ focusing on the technical detail without showing the real outcomes. That makes it hard for enterprises, industries, and even consumers to get excited about the vision.”
Sandhu drew a comparison to the early days of cloud computing. Few were stirred by lists of virtualisation features; everyone was transformed by the collective impact of the cloud stack. CPaaS, network APIs, and their convergence with AI and UCaaS sit at a similar inflection point in 2025.
Intelligent Engagement As Orchestration, Trust, and Action
If CPaaS provides the technical foundation, intelligent engagement is the strategic layer that makes it meaningful. For Boris Maric, Head of Mid Market Customer Acquisition EMEA at InfoBip, intelligent engagement is less about raw capability and more about orchestration. “For me, intelligent engagement is really about orchestration, ensuring that all messages and interactions are coordinated effectively. In my presentation, I spoke about three guiding principles: trust, guidance, and action.”
Those principles are not abstract. They speak directly to every organisation’s priorities: building trusted customer relationships, guiding users seamlessly across journeys, and driving measurable actions that impact revenue and loyalty. The proliferation of customer data and communication channels has created a paradox for enterprises: everything is measurable, yet very little is orchestrated.
Maric underlined this gap: “The key is that most businesses already have the data. The challenge, and opportunity, is orchestrating that data into more intelligent, engaging interactions.”
Network APIs are Unlocking the Latent Value of Mobile Networks
The enabler of this orchestration at scale is the new wave of network APIs, exposing previously dormant capabilities within mobile networks: quality-on-demand, location, authentication, and security, all programmable via API.
As Sandhu framed it: “With the rollout of 5G, plus AI and cloud as enablers, mobile networks can now evolve into a vibrant ecosystem, platform, and marketplace, much like cloud has done.”
Ericsson and Vonage’s joint venture, Aduna, is already live in multiple countries and exemplifies this transition. Uniting operators, hyperscalers, and developers provides a consistent API layer across fragmented networks, the equivalent of AWS or Azure in the cloud’s formative years.
The GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative is accelerating this further. With more than 40 mobile operators signed on by early 2025, Open Gateway provides a standardised set of network APIs that developers can consume globally, rather than market by market. Analysts at STL Partners estimate this could unlock a $300 billion market opportunity by 2030.
Real-Life Case Studies: From Healthcare to Retail
The most persuasive arguments for CPaaS and network APIs come from applied examples. Healthcare, often cited as a bellwether, is illustrative.
Sandhu described a scenario where a first responder, equipped with a 5G-enabled tablet, transmits diagnostics to hospital specialists in real time.
Thanks to network APIs, the connection is low-latency and high-quality; CPaaS ensures security; UCaaS enables the hospital team to communicate and coordinate; and what we traditionally call ‘contact center’ technology can instead be reframed as ‘patient engagement planning.’”
Retail provides another lens. According to a 2025 report by Juniper Research, retailers that integrate conversational commerce over channels like WhatsApp and RCS will generate $43 billion in incremental sales globally this year. This aligns with Maric’s observation that “nine out of ten Gen Z consumers prefer chat over phone calls. That’s where the real opportunity lies.”
By orchestrating personalised promotions, payment authentication, and post-purchase support through intelligent engagement flows, retailers are redesigning the shopping experience around consumer preference.
From Isolated Use Cases to Agentic Workflows
Both Sandhu and Maric emphasise that the industry must move beyond isolated use cases. For Maric, the horizon is clear. “I think agentic AI is a huge opportunity,” he said. “It’s not just a buzzword, it’s about implementing agentic workflows across the entire customer journey. We need to move away from isolated use cases and instead support everything in one seamless conversational flow: discovery, purchasing, and support all at a single point.”
In practice, this means embedding AI agents that can negotiate with network APIs, CRM systems, and UC platforms simultaneously, orchestrating an end-to-end journey rather than handling single tasks like FAQs or ticket routing. Gartner forecasts that by 2027, 40 percent of customer interactions will be fully handled by AI agents operating across multiple enterprise platforms, up from less than 5 percent today.
The Strategic Imperative for Businesses
The implications are both strategic and enormously urgent for IT and C-suite leaders. Intelligent engagement and network APIs are not incremental upgrades but architectural shifts in how businesses interact with employees, customers, and ecosystems.
Sandhu was emphatic:
If we don’t explain it in human terms, focusing on value and outcomes, it won’t gain traction in the market.”
Organisations that reduce CPaaS to technical features will underinvest. Those that frame it around intelligent engagement, such as patient care, customer loyalty, or employee experience, will capture disproportionate value.
Maric echoed this responsibility, noting “Our responsibility is not just to guide enterprises and industries but also telcos and, ultimately, end customers. That’s how we drive the outcomes everyone is looking for.”
Towards a Human-Centred CPaaS Era
The promise of CPaaS and network APIs has hovered over the industry for years. In 2025, with 5G nearly ubiquitous in developed markets, AI and cloud infrastructure mature, and intelligent engagement models emerging, the conditions are in place for scale.
However, the pivot required is less technical than conceptual. It requires the shift from APIs to orchestration, features to outcomes, and isolated deployments to agentic workflows.
As Sandhu outlined, “There’s a lot of magic in that potential.” The organisations that grasp it and make intelligent engagement a board-level priority will be the ones to turn that potential into tangible business transformation.
