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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
Italy Sep 25, 2025 Invitation Only Physical italian
Nel percorso verso l’AI e la trasformazione digitale, dati e automazione sono gli elementi centrali di ogni strategia tecnologica. Ma senza una governance chiara, rischiano di diventare non solo fonte di inefficienza, ma anche di rischi e incoerenza. Come garantire che i dati siano completi, accessibili e affidabili? Come automatizzare le operation IT e i processi aziendali mantenendo controllo, compliance e sicurezza? Durante questa roundtable esclusiva, organizzata da CIONET Italia e IBM, affronteremo: La governance come abilitatore di dati affidabili e automazione sicura. Come prepararsi a un’adozione dell’AI realmente scalabile. Il ruolo di controllo, resilienza e gestione del rischio nell’innovazione.
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Belgium Oct 16, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
AI isn’t just another tool. It changes how we work, how we think, how we organise ourselves.Yet most organisations still approach it like a digital upgrade, deploying assistants, automating workflows, testing use cases inisolation.The results are predictable. Short-term wins. Long-term confusion.Effort spent. Value unclear.Many companies can’t connect AI to their actual strategic goals,and the promised ROI never materialises.At the same time, something deeper is shifting.AI can now reason, decide, adapt. Not just mimic processes butcontribute to them.The technology is evolving, but the way we implement it hasn’tcaught up.If your AI still fits inside a single department, you’re likely solvingthe wrong problem.If it works only for individuals, you're missing how your teamsactually deliver value.If it replaces people instead of supporting them, you're buildingfor today, not tomorrow.The next step isn’t more AI. It’s the right AI.Built for your business, your teams, your way of working.Not a tool to add but a structure to build around.Are we ready to treat AI as a shared capability, not a scatteredexperiment?Can we move beyond individual efficiency and build systems thatcollaborate, learn and adapt with us?Those are the questions we’ll explore at the round table.
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Germany Oct 28, 2025 Country Members Physical german
Am 28. Oktober lädt CIONET CIOs und Digital Leaders nach Köln ein: hier stellen wir reale Anwendungsfälle vor, in denen KI-Agenten Aufgaben autonom übernehmen, Prozesse beschleunigen und Entscheidungen vorbereiten – mit messbarem Nutzen für das Business.
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France Nov 4, 2025 Country Members Physical french
À l’ère des mutations géopolitiques et réglementaires, l’établissement d’une souveraineté numérique est devenu un élément stratégique essentiel pour les entreprises. Ce dialogue stratégique mettra en lumière le rôle fondamental du réseau dans la mise en place du contrôle, de la confiance et de la résilience. Nous explorerons comment une infrastructure moderne et résiliente permet d’appliquer des politiques de gestion des données et d’assurer la continuité opérationnelle. Ce dialogue stratégique, réservé à un groupe restreint de pairs, est conçu pour permettre aux leaders du numérique d’échanger sur l’un des enjeux les plus urgents aujourd’hui. Nous discuterons des réseaux « sovereign-ready » et débattrons des préoccupations croissantes autour de la souveraineté des données, qui motivent l’adoption de politiques de confidentialité et de protection des données de plus en plus strictes à l’échelle mondiale.
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Netherlands Nov 10, 2025 Public Physical english
CIONET Nederland vertrekt met een groep Nederlandse CIO's en digital leaders 10 t/m 12 november 2025 voor de geheel verzorgde CIO Innovation Trip naar de Web Summit in Lissabon, Portugal. Reis jij mee of neem je collega(s) mee!
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How Hello Sugar reached a 66% automation rate with our hybrid solution
Hello Sugar wanted to scale their waxing franchise without growing their reception staff – all while offering higher quality CX. With Ultimate’s hybrid automation solution, this process couldn’t have gone more smoothly.
Hello Sugar is the fastest growing Brazilian wax and sugar salon in the U.S.
Hello Sugar serves beauty-conscious customers across the U.S.
Their support team consists of 20 receptionists who handle requests via Zendesk.
Hello Sugar offers customer support via SMS.
Hello Sugar was looking to double the number of stores – without doubling their receptionists' workload.
Ultimate's hybrid combination of gen AI and conversation design helped Hello Sugar hit a sweet spot between empathetic, personalized, and scalable support.
Trying to double the number of stores in their franchise within the year – without growing their support team – may sound like the makings of a sticky situation. But what sets Hello Sugar apart in the beauty and wellness space is their tendency to be tech savvy. They knew that the best way to scale was to automate. And while a lot of other AI providers sugar coat their automation capabilities, Ultimate’s automation solution proved to be the real deal.
Hello Sugar’s CTO, Austin Towns, was instantly impressed by the generative AI technology behind UltimateGPT and quickly began automating common intents about salon services and pricing. With the help of Ultimate’s hands-on customer success team and a seamless integration with Zendesk - who recently acquired Ultimate to scale the partnership - they enhanced the quality of their support by combining ultra-personalized service with near-instant response times.
With the freedom and flexibility of generative AI, their bot also delivers precise info about the location of salons to lost customers as well as empathetic responses for first time waxers – all in perfect brand tone of voice. Meanwhile, the precision and control of manual conversation design enabled them to automate their entire appointment booking process. Now, Hello Sugar boasts a 66% automation rate thanks to our hybrid automation solution.
Austin Towns
CTO, Hello Sugar
Ultimate’s hybrid automation solution seamlessly integrated with their existing CRM so they were able to start automating common queries straight away.
As a tech savvy business within the beauty and wellness space, Hello Sugar has been able to offer improved CX even as they double their number of salons – all while saving $14K in agent costs per month.
With our hybrid solution, Hello Sugar was able to combine generative AI and conversation design to reach an automation rate of +66%.
With the help of AI, Hello Sugar is able to attend to customer queries in a matter of seconds. Thanks to UltimateGPT, they’re able to do so in a way that integrates empathy and on-brand TOV into each interaction.
Hello Sugar plans on continuing to find more use cases for AI to improve CX, such as by expanding their APIs to reduce manual work for receptionists.
For example, they want to harness the capabilities of API integrations for booking and rescheduling appointments to expand the capabilities of what their bot can do when responding to these requests.
They plan to audit all existing intents to find more opportunities to leverage UltimateGPT.
Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
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Isabelle Droll - CIO for Airline, Corporate, Hotels & Resorts and Sustainability at TUI - Data, Diversity, and Destinations
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Sharon Prior - CIO in transition - How Great Tech Leadership Begins with Business Thinking
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José Antonio López, Group CIO at TOUS - Jewels, Data & AI: Inside the Digital Transformation of TOUS
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Tom Tanghe - General Manager ITC EMEA at Daikin Europe - Reinventing the CIO Role
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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor
Geopolitical tensions have dominated the headlines for over two years now. In this context, the cyber threat landscape is also evolving rapidly. The protection and security of critical infrastructure – both physical and digital – is becoming increasingly important.
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