BT and Infobip have expanded their partnership to deliver a unified global communications solution that blends voice, messaging, and AI capabilities for enterprise contact centres. The collaboration reflects a broader evolution in how telcos and CPaaS providers converge around customer experience and intelligent engagement. MEF CEO Dario Betti explores its significance for the mobile ecosystem.
On the 2nd of October 2025, BT and Infobip took a next step for their existing 2022 partnership to bundling BT’s Call Center solution with Infobip’s messaging stack – and a good dose of AI sprinkled on top (or at the foundation).
The new arrangement binds BT’s international numbering, toll‑free, and inbound voice (its ICG portfolio) to Infobip’s cloud communications platform and rich channel mix—RCS, WhatsApp, SMS. Enterprises customers can run voice and messaging from one provider, everywhere they operate. It’s a practical step toward the long‑promised “single virtual contact network,” where conversations move fluidly between channels and countries, and the technology fades into the background.
The 2025 announcement doesn’t just scale a UK success; it presents a new operating model for global CX: carrier‑grade voice and numbering fused with omnichannel CPaaS and AI.”
The Origins of the Deal
In 2022, the pairing started with a clear premise: UK enterprises needed to meet customers where they were—on WhatsApp, RCS, Messenger—while orchestrating journeys and unifying data. BT brought reach and relationships; Infobip brought the CX stack: Moments for journey design, Answers for chatbots, People CDP for a unified customer view. Sectors like banking, logistics, and the public sector were early adopters, trading clunky, siloed communications for something more adaptive and conversational. That UK template worked, and the 2025 expansion scales it worldwide, formalizing two‑way resale so BT customers can buy Infobip’s messaging and Infobip customers can access BT’s ICG voice footprint in one package, across more than 130 countries for numbers and 180 for inbound call management.
Together they should eliminate seams: a single architecture for routing, engaging, escalating, from rich messaging to live voice.
The AI Thread, Woven in
More details will be needed to understand what is meant by the ‘AI foundation’. The details of the integration of AI between the two platforms has not fully defined. Some of that might be more future looking integration between the work of Infobip on Generative AI and BT works in LLMs. The partnership refers to advanced conversational AI: human‑like dialog, prompt‑based journey design without heavy coding, smarter routing and agent assist. Enterprises should be able to design interactions that adapt in real time to customer intent, history, and channel behaviour across platforms.
Implications for the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF): MNO/CPaaS Collaboration Comes of Age
This deal is a test for how mobile operators (MNOs) and CPaaS platforms are re‑framing the value chain—from carriage and connectivity to outcomes and experience. For MEF’s community, several themes stand out:
From pipes to platforms to outcomes: MNOs like BT are no longer just selling numbers and minutes; they’re co‑packaging engagement outcomes (conversion, resolution, CSAT). The complementarity of the deal could bring to mind potential merger and acquisition patterns for other telcos and CPaaS players. Traditional voice centric telco might be looking at multichannel and messaging orchestration from CPaaS. The injection of AI is critical for call centres and CPaaS have toyed for some time with the early AI models. This might be not just an MNO- CPaaS discussion, but CCaaS (contant center as a service) and UCaaS (Unified Communication as a Service).
AI is eating software for breakfast; it might be having communication for lunch. The implication of new models. AI as the new interop layer: Generative and NLU (Natural Language Understanding) models are becoming the glue between channels.
The Bottom Line
The 2025 announcement doesn’t just scale a UK success; it presents a new operating model for global CX: carrier‑grade voice and numbering fused with omnichannel CPaaS and AI. For the mobile ecosystem, it’s a potential sign or where telco CPaaS collaboration could be going less about wholesales, more about merging channels and intelligent integration.
