For the second time, the company is positioned furthest for Completeness of Vision.

Two decades ago, Infobip began with a simple mission: use technology to bring people closer together.

What has followed is a consistent pattern of building ahead of the market, moving from SMS to omnichannel communications, then conversational AI, and now with the launch of Infobip AgentOS, bringing agentic AI to enterprise scale.

Infobip views the Gartner recognition as a reflection of the company’s sustained ability to anticipate what comes next, not chase what’s trending today.

Infobip AgentOS enables businesses to deploy AI agents that autonomously handle transactions, manage routing, and optimise workflows in real time, safely and at scale, with less manual intervention and faster execution than before.

Unlike traditional communication systems, MTN’s CPaaS is built for the realities of a mobile-first market. The platform unifies SMS, voice, WhatsApp, email, and more into a single, intuitive interface. This approach is especially significant in Nigeria, with over 107 million internet users, 45.4% of the total population, according to Data Report. This figure underscores the necessity for businesses to meet customers where they are.

During the demo, attendees witnessed how CPaaS enables two-way, real-time conversations between brands and customers.

The platform’s support for rich media, instant analytics, and seamless integration with business workflows drew particular attention.

These features are designed to empower businesses with data-driven insights and the agility to personalise every interaction, whether it’s a service notification, marketing campaign, or customer support exchange.

Akinbulejo Onabolu, head of Enterprise Segment at MTN Nigeria, articulated the vision:

“CPaaS gives enterprises the flexibility to interact with their customers on their preferred platforms; whether it’s chat, voice, or messaging, in a way that feels personal and immediate. We’re looking forward to the value this will unlock for businesses across industries once it launches.”

The fireside chat added depth to the conversation, with Omowunmi Olatunbosun, head of SME Segment at MTN Nigeria, and Stephen Agbi of Bayobab, highlighting how digital engagement bridges the gap between businesses and audiences. They emphasised that today’s consumers demand immediacy, relevance, and ease, qualities that CPaaS is built to deliver.

The stakes for digital transformation in Nigeria are high. In a report by Punch, the country’s enterprise tech market is projected to reach $22 billion by 2027, reflecting a surge in demand for scalable, cloud-based solutions that drive efficiency and customer loyalty.

The CPAAS Acceleration Alliance have estimated that globally, the CPaaS market is expected to grow from $14.7 billion in 2025 to $72.4 billion by 2035, at a compound annual growth rate of 18.4%, a testament to the platform’s transformative potential.

The event’s closing keynote from META’s Korhan Yunak reinforced the strategic value of digital channels like WhatsApp, which are now indispensable for business communication and engagement at scale.

As MTN Nigeria prepares for the Q3 2025 launch, the anticipation is unmistakable. With its promise of flexibility, intelligence, and seamless integration, MTN’s CPaaS platform is set to become the backbone of next-generation business-customer engagement in Nigeria, enabling enterprises to not just communicate but to connect, adapt, and grow in a digital-first era.

• Bayobab, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MTN Group, has signed a five-year deal with Infobip
• The new collaboration simplifies messaging for brands with advanced technology

Infobip has entered a strategic five-year partnership with Bayobab, a leading African digital connectivity provider.

Bayobab will use Infobip’s Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) Customer Modules and Routing management to handle campaign management, APIs, and analytics and deliver SMS across Africa and beyond.

Bayobab will also access Infobip’s security solutions such as a best-in-class firewall to ensure the safety of their mobile subscribers.

With this partnership, Bayobab is streamlining its SMS connectivity and reducing associated administrative costs.

Bayobab is a leading connectivity and infrastructure provider in Africa which operates extensively across the continent, boasting over 115,000 km of fiber cable.

Bayobab provides access to and manages, directly or indirectly, 24 subsea cables, along with over 70 Points of Presence (PoPs) across Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Traditionally, brands had to connect individually with each Mobile Network Operator (MNO) within the MTN Group to terminate SMS.

With Infobip’s CPaaS enablement platform modules, Bayobab simplifies this process so that brands and aggregators can now securely connect once and terminate traffic to MTN and other operators.

This solution offers enhanced control, security, reporting, and efficiency, benefiting brands, mobile operators, and message recipients.

Kedar Gupte, chief mobility business officer at Bayobab, said:

“We wanted to simplify how brands manage messaging in Africa with a single access point, high-quality service, and necessary controls. Our partnership with Infobip equips us to do this on a large scale and is crucial for tapping into Africa’s growth potential, where consumers demand messaging solutions, chat apps, and internet access.”

Matija Ražem, chief commercial telecom officer at Infobip, added:

“Our partnership optimizes Bayobab’s SMS connectivity and routing across Africa, supporting its expansion plans. We invested heavily in our CPaaS enablement capabilities, which now serve MNOs worldwide with top-tier security and efficiency.

“Infobip has been managing global SMS traffic since 2006. We excel in the messaging ecosystem with the latest technology, secure processes, and best practices. Extending this to large entities is a logical next step. The timing is right for more mobile operator groups to adopt a hub approach and maximize their messaging opportunities.”

Infobip’s CPaaS enablement modules, now available to all MNOs, include the following:

• Best-in-class CPaaS platform: campaign and ID management, bulk messaging, usage reports
• Route management:source, destination, quality, volume, percentage, time, traffic type
• Revenue protection:grey route detection, automated penetration testing, least cost, minimum margin
• Unified reporting:management overview, partner access, flexible interface, trends analysis
• Onboarding:online visibility and onboarding for all brands, partners, and suppliers

These items are a critical component of Infobip’s significant CPaaS enablement solution.

It can integrate core telco network capabilities with RCS MaaP building blocks and Camara-compliant network APIs.

Infobip’s CPaaS enablement solution and Developer Experience network will help telecoms monetize CPaaS opportunities more efficiently.

It marks a major step for Infobip to democratize the messaging ecosystem globally, hand in hand with telcos.

Infobip has been recognised for its Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision^.

The Gartner report Top 10 Trends in Enterprise Communication Services 2024 notes the growth of GenAI as “The year 2023 saw the rise of generative AI (GenAI) as a major disruptor impacting almost all technology areas”.

The Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey identifies customer experience, improving margins, revenue growth, ensuring compliance/minimising risk, and increasing employee effectiveness as the top critical outcomes expected from enterprise digital technology investments.

Infobip has invested in its AI Hub for AI-driven conversational customer experiences that solve business problems.

The firm was also among the first globally to launch Camara-compliant Network APIs under the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.

Silvio Kutić, CEO at Infobip, said:

“As Gartner explains, “businesses prioritise business outcomes, buying experiences, and cloud consumption models when buying communications services.” That’s why we are innovating across all layers of the tech stack to enable businesses to digitally transform their interactions with customers. As the CPaaS market continues to grow, Infobip remains the full-stack omnichannel communications platform for every platform.”

Unlike traditional text-based SMS, RCS is redefining the way businesses engage with their customers, and it is anticipated that the increasing adoption of technologies such as Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) will be the main driver for enterprises leveraging operator-led RCS channels for rich business messaging.

A study by Juniper Research has found that the global number of active RCS users will reach 1.1 billion in 2024, up from 930 million in 2023.

The rising adoption of RCS signifies a fundamental change in how businesses connect with their customers.

While SMS remains a powerful channel that brands use extensively because of its reach and device support, it has some limitations that RCS successfully compensates for with its rich feature set.

• For example, SMS is typically a one-way messaging platform, whereas RCS supports a two-way communication channel that allows interactive messages to be sent, allowing interactivity between both sender and receiver.

SMS can be used to deliver an alert, notification or One-Time Password, RCS can be used for transactional messaging, calls to action or obtaining customer feedback.

Sender verification

Another advantage that RCS holds over SMS is sender verification, which is a key feature of RCS that increases trust and thus drives the adoption of this channel for business messaging. Similarly, unlike SMS, RCS offers better security in the form of end-to-end message encryption.

By adopting RCS to engage with their customers, businesses can access analytics that are not available on the SMS platform, which allows them to analyse customer behaviour.

• For example, RCS enables organisations to track open rates, how long it took for a customer to open a message and what actions were taken once they opened the message, such as whether they clicked on a link or further explored a particular product promotion.

There are several fundamental ways in which RCS is expected to transform the landscape of business communication.

RCS allows messaging to shift from being passive to becoming an active engagement. By providing richer multimedia content, customers can expect interactive experiences and deeper engagement with their brands and ultimately a better customer experience.

Additionally, based on user analytics, RCS messaging allows for customer segmentation and more personalised interactions, while also enabling businesses to automate their communication through the addition of chatbots that process simple requests and frequently asked questions and ensure 24/7 engagement.

Measuring the impact

One of the most significant advantages of RCS for businesses is its measurability. RCS allows organisations to measure the impact of their campaigns, thus enabling them to make informed decisions.

However, businesses still face some common challenges when implementing RCS. Since RCS is relatively new, especially in the African region, there is some technical complexity that comes with the implementation of the platform.

These challenges can be mitigated by choosing the right communication platform vendor to assist the organisation to transition to RCS.

Another challenge is that RCS is currently only compatible with Android devices, but concerted efforts are being made by various parties and stakeholders to extend its interoperability to iOS devices.

Despite these challenges, the future of RCS as a communication channel for businesses looks bright. As the messaging channel gains more traction, we expect to see many different and unique use cases developing for different business lines and different customer segments.

Soon, we can expect to see more businesses leveraging RCS to interact with their customers, resulting in a boom for personalised marketing.

Leveraging mobile messaging platforms, conversational banking has ushered in a new era of seamless and personalised banking experiences, tailored to meet the unique needs and preferences of each individual.

When conversational banking is delivered well, customers get both a more convenient and rewarding service experience. In other words, conversational banking leads to improved customer experience and ultimately improved customer loyalty.

Notably it has transformed how customers engage with their banks, providing a seamless and personalised experience using mobile messaging.

However, a solid foundation for any conversational customer experience today is omnichannel communications, which is the ability to reach customers where and when they want, on their preferred channels.

Through chat apps, conversational banking provides instant, contextual, and personalised communication.

Clients have the convenience of engaging with chatbots or agents 24/7 over a single platform where conversation history is saved for later reference.

An important aspect of banking is the ability to seamlessly shift the “conversation” to a human agent if and when needed while having the ability to present the engagement thus far to the agent, so as not to lose conversational context.

Conversational context

For example, should the customer have a question the chatbot cannot answer or if the customer gets stuck in the automation journey, they can be transferred to an agent with the conversational context, so the agent carries on where the conversation stopped, without the customer needing to explain everything all over again.

Choice is key and the caveat to an enhanced customer experience is to have the ability to deliver conversational banking over the customer’s channel of choice with the ability to move between channels without losing the context of the “conversation”.

One of the crucial customer benefits of conversational banking using chat apps is enabling customers to reach the financial institution whenever and wherever they may be. This will help build the trust required for successful long-term client-bank relationships.

The more a customer interacts with their bank through these conversations, the more a bank understands the customer’s preferences, habits, and needs – making it easier to personalise future transactional and promotional messages.

Conversational banking also brings various benefits to financial institutions, including speeding up time to resolution of queries or FAQs and automating the collection of data.

Automation in call centres not only reduces costs but also enhances customer satisfaction, as customers who have a positive experience with a brand tend to report higher levels of satisfaction.

Revenue growth

Additionally, revenue growth can be driven through upsell, cross-sell and lead-generation efforts that can be personalised through conversational banking.

Using conversational banking with AI-supported chatbots can also significantly reduce agents’ time spent on real-time support calls.

Financial institutions can therefore support more customers with the same number of agents using chat apps.

This reduces the pressure on customer service representatives and frees them up to handle more complex customer transactions.

AI technology plays a very important role in powering conversational banking experiences, as it enables chatbots to understand customer voice or text communications and to reply, simulating actual conversations. AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to allow chatbots to determine meaning from language through common data elements.

However, the key challenge for financial institutions to overcome when looking to adopt a conversational banking journey is to choose the right communications platform and partner. Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) and conversational AI should give organisations all the tools they need for a great conversational banking experience.

However, the key is to be able to customise these tools to align with their unique use cases and understanding of what their customers want.

The disruption within the banking sector is evident, as seen by the remarkable growth of fintech startups that have multiplied sevenfold over the past five years.

Traditional banks must recognise and address these emerging challenges to remain relevant and competitive by embracing digital transformation effectively and adopting innovative strategies and new technologies to position themselves to thrive.

This year’s list shines a spotlight on businesses that are shaping industry and culture through their innovations.

These organisations are setting new standards and achieving remarkable milestones in all sectors of the economy.

Alongside the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, Fast Company recognizes 606 organisations across 58 sectors and regions.

Silvio Kutić, CEO at Infobip commented:

“Innovation is at the heart of what we do at Infobip, and we are delighted to have been recognized by Fast Company for our achievements. Our technology is transforming how organisations interact with their customers across the board, from automotive, retail and financial services, through to healthcare and other social services.

“We are applying our innovative technology to transform various industry verticals. Cloud infrastructure, conversational chat apps and generative artificial intelligence (AI) allow conversations between businesses and consumers, enriching user experiences and consolidating disparate customer journeys into one seamless experience.

“The conversational future is here, and we’re helping organisations accelerate their digital transformation, shifting towards intuitive two-way interactions with their customers through the channels and chat apps they use with their families and friends.”

Croatia’s first Unicorn, Infobip has been working with businesses such as Uber, Bolt and Cabify to disrupt the automotive industry and transform customer communications.

Working with Uber in India, Infobip developed an AI-powered chatbot to enable customers to order rides via WhatsApp. The global-first initiative created a seamless booking experience for Uber customers.

In February, Infobip  joined forces with Podravka Group, a leading Croatian multinational, to launch “SuperfoodChef AI by Coolinarika”. The cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) assistant is a testament to the power of responsible AI, designed to empower users to make healthier food choices and address rising obesity rates in Croatia.

Infobip has also helped digital insurance business LAQO become the first to adopt a GPT-enabled digital assistant for customer support in the European fintech industry. Infobip created a chatbot providing fast, accessible, and personalised responses to customer queries.

The World’s Most Innovative Companies stands as Fast Company‘s hallmark franchise and one of its most anticipated editorial efforts of the year.

Fast Company‘s editors and writers identified the companies driving progress around the world and across industries, evaluating thousands of submissions through a competitive application process.

The result is a globe-spanning guide to innovation today, from early-stage startups to some of the most valuable companies in the world.

Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies package is available online, as well as in-app form via iTunes, and on newsstands beginning March 26. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

“Our list of the Most Innovative Companies is both a comprehensive look at the innovation economy and a snapshot of the business trends that defined the year,” said Fast Company editor-in-chief Brendan Vaughan.

“We saw extraordinary innovation across the board in 2023, but we also saw a handful of clear patterns: the growing footprint and impact of AI, the triumphant return of live events, and great leaps forward in climate tech. We face daunting challenges on many fronts, but the solutions we celebrate in MIC give me plenty of hope about the future.”

Fast Company will host the Most Innovative Companies Summit and Gala on May 16. The summit features a morning and afternoon of inspiring content, followed by a creative black-tie gala including networking, a seated dinner, and an honoree presentation. This event celebrates the Most Innovative Companies honorees and provides an inside look at cutting-edge business trends and what it takes to innovate in 2024.

In September 2023, Infobip was recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision in the first Gartner Magic Quadrant for the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market.

Global cloud communications platform Infobip has been ranked as the number one Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) provider in analyst firm Metrigy’s first CPaaS MetriRank report.

The report identifies the top ten players in the global CPaaS market, assessed against criteria that include market share, financials, market share momentum, product mix, customer sentiment, and customer business success.

Infobip was ranked ahead of competitors after receiving the maximum score for customer sentiment, customer business success, and product mix.

The firm was the only provider to achieve the maximum score for customer sentiment. Metrigy’s customer sentiment and customer business success scores are based on feedback from its annual survey of 1,695 companies across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Diane Myers, principal analyst responsible for Metrigy’s MetriRank reports, said:

“Infobip is the leader in our first CPaaS MetriRank report, number two in market share, and the highest product mix and customer sentiment ratings. With a stronghold in Europe, over the past two years, Infobip has extended its global reach and capabilities through key acquisitions.”

Silvio Kutić, CEO at Infobip, said:

“Our recognition by Metrigy as the number one CPaaS provider globally demonstrates the breadth and depth of our capabilities alongside our relentless focus on our customers – evidenced by our maximum score for customer sentiment. Moreover, as Metrigy notes, artificial intelligence is becoming more critical in the market, and we have made significant investments to provide innovative AI-powered products and services to meet our customer’s evolving business needs.

“With the CPaaS market forecast to grow to $16.1 billion by 2027, according to Metrigy, we are continuing to innovate to remain the leading full-stack omnichannel communications platform for every platform.”

In its Competitive Landscape CPaaS report, Gartner said:

“The communications platform as a service market is evolving beyond APIs to encompass the entire customer journey. Existing conversational commerce use cases are broadening to become conversational everything.”

In the same report, the analyst recommended CPaaS providers must: “construct customer experience as a service (CXaaS) offerings to target the entire customer life cycle by encompassing not just CPaaS, but also contact centre, customer data platform (CDP) and conversational artificial intelligence (CAI), as well as customer journey orchestration.”

Gartner also recommended providers: “accelerate time to value for customer experience (CX) by providing tools such as user-friendly templates, ‘solutions in a box’ for advanced use cases, improved visual builders and detailed journey analytics.”

To meet these evolving demands, Infobip recently launched Experiences, a revolutionary generative AI-powered, no-code journey builder that helps businesses engage customers, foster loyalty, and drive growth. Infobip Experiences enables organizations to orchestrate customer journeys and save time with a library of journey templates from onboarding and engagement to retention and loyalty.

Alongside its network of 43 data centres and 9,700 global connections, of which 800 are direct operator connections, customers cite Infobip’s worldwide reach and scale, along with its delivery and latency guarantees, as key differentiators.

Silvio Kutić, CEO at Infobip, said: “We believe the Gartner recognition of Infobip as a Leader in the CPaaS market reflects the investments we’re making to provide innovative new products and services alongside our global reach and scale. Moreover, our acquisitions of U.S. messaging heavyweight OpenMarket and VoIP provider Peerless Network have cemented our superior position in America alongside our market-leading offer globally.

“As a result, we offer a global one-stop shop for omnichannel interactions and communications. But we’re not stopping now. With the CPaaS market forecast to grow to $30.6 billion by 2026, we are keeping our foot on the gas to ensure we remain the leading full-stack omnichannel communications platform for every platform.”

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports are a culmination of rigorous, fact-based research in specific markets, providing a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the providers in those markets. Providers are positioned into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.