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Belgium 19-5-26 Invitation Only Physical english

AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

The game has changed, clearly. Attackers have AI, defenders have AI, and both sides are learning faster than anyone expected, or maybe the attackers are just a bit faster. What used to take hours now happens in seconds, and detection windows close before alerts even appear. It’s adaptation beyond automation, and no one gets to sit still. But every promise of AI-driven defence comes with a price. The tools are expensive to train, maintain, and monitor. Mistakes cost more too. False positives drain teams, model drift hides real threats, and poisoned data turns protection into confusion. So now it’s not only about defending networks, it’s about defending the defenders themselves, from fatigue, blind trust, and automation gone wrong. So how do you keep visibility when both sides use the same weapons? How do you detect intent when patterns look human but aren’t? How do you justify cost when failure still happens, just faster? Let’s explore what happens when algorithms face each other on both sides of the firewall, and what new defences emerge when speed alone is no longer enough. A closed conversation about a future where cybersecurity becomes an AI vs AI battle, and humans still have to win.

Belgium 21-5-26 All Members Physical english

Replace, Wrap, or Rebuild? : Core modernization in financial services and insurance, without a full rewrite.

For banks, insurers, and other financial services leaders, core modernization is rarely a simple technology decision. The harder question is what to replace, what to wrap, what to rebuild selectively, and what to leave alone. This round table brings together senior peers to discuss how they are making those choices under real constraints: resilience, control, regulatory scrutiny, delivery speed, vendor dependency, and the risk of getting sequencing wrong. The conversation will focus on practical judgment, where modernization creates value, where it adds risk, and how to move forward without triggering another multi-year transformation cycle. A small-group discussion for leaders looking for clear decisions, credible trade-offs, and peer perspective.

Belgium 22-5-26 Invitation Only Physical english

Managing Vendor Lock-In: Balancing dependence, cost, and control in strategic partnerships

Every vendor swears their platform is open, flexible, and built for freedom. Then comes the renewal date. The price goes up, migration looks painful, and “strategic partnership” starts to feel more like dependency. Most organisations don’t get trapped overnight, they walk into it one contract at a time. Broadcom, anyone? We know lock-in isn’t only technical, it’s commercial, architectural, and even cultural. Once tools shape how teams work, switching becomes not only costly but politically impossible. So how do you manage dependency without losing leverage? What do you do when moving away costs more than staying? How do you negotiate from a position of weakness? And what governance models help prevent lock-in before it happens? Let’s share how to keep options open, make vendors compete without breaking partnerships, and find leverage even when it seems there’s none left. A closed conversation for those who’ve learned that freedom in IT is rarely free.

May 19, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

May 22, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Managing Vendor Lock-In: Balancing dependence, cost, and control in strategic partnerships

May 26, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

The Career Path of the Cloud Engineer: From system builder to strategic enabler of digital scale

The cloud engineer’s world keeps expanding. It started with provisioning and automation, but now it touches everything: resilience, security, cost, and even business continuity. What used to be a back-end function has become one of the most visible roles in digital operations. Yet with that visibility comes pressure: constant evolution, constant firefighting, and very little time to step back and ask, “Where is this career actually going?”

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How DiscoverCars saves €128k annually and upskills agents with generative AI

Learn why Carla, DiscoverCars’ chatbot, is a valuable member of their support team who simultaneously saves agents 110 hours per week while also improving their CSAT.

DiscoverCars at a glance

The customer

DiscoverCars is an online platform that provides rental car bookings.

The market

They serve customers around the world in 19 languages.

The support team

A team of 66 agents provides support to customers with the help of their bot, Carla.

The channels

DiscoverCars offers support via email and chat. Ultimate seamlessly integrates with their support stack and with Zendesk, their CRM.

The situation

With growing consumer demand but limited resources, DiscoverCars was looking to speedily scale their support in a cost-effective way.

The solution

UltimateGPT, our generative AI-powered automation solution, was easy to use and quick to get started. Carla is now considered a valued member of the team.

Getting started with Ultimate

DiscoverCars wanted to scale their support in order to better serve their customers and to meet the demands of seasonal travel spikes. The problem was that, with business busier than ever, they had limited resources to continuously hire and train new support staff. Endorsed on Zendesk's list of top CX automation providers, they chose Ultimate as the best solution to meet their support needs. Guleysha Hasanova, DiscoverCars’ Automation and Helpdesk Manager, was instantly impressed by the intuitive dialogue builder and how our AI tools provided quick time to value without requiring a ton of technical know-how.

Thanks to their stellar Customer Success Manager, Frances Naguit, within just two months their chatbot, Carla, was fully operational. As Guleysha recalls, “Frances was the best teacher. She took us from baby steps to the advanced level on Ultimate. She helped me to see that I could easily manage our bot without prior technical background.” But the benefits didn’t stop there. Carla is now a valued member of the team who does the work of 1.5 agents. She is helping them to clear their ticket backlog, and saves their human agents an average of 110 hours a week. All of this has resulted in an improved CSAT score, which has jumped from 68% to 73% since launching their bot.

"Guleysha was committed to DiscoverCars' onboarding process and ensured all potential use cases for automation were explored. With her experience and thoughtfulness, she was the perfect person to build and manage the bot."

Frances Naguit
Customer Success Manager, Ultimate

Agent hours saved per month: 440

Bot handled rate: 35%

CSAT: 73%

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AI use case spotlight #1: Automation upskills agents

Not only has Carla become a big help to DiscoverCars’ support team, but automation has also helped power more rewarding support careers at DiscoverCars.
Guleysha reflects on her career trajectory, noting that, “Before I was purely a customer support agent, and now I’m on the backend overseeing Carla as the person carrying out our automation projects. I have a lot of freedom, and I’m really proud of the work I’m doing.”
DiscoverCars even hopes to expand its bot-building team by bringing another agent on board as a bot manager, as the importance of this function within the world of CX continues to grow.

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AI use case spotlight #2: Instantly offering multilingual support with UltimateGPT

DiscoverCars wanted to offer support in several languages without the hassle of individually translating pre-programmed replies in each new language.
After watching a demo of our generative AI tool, UltimateGPT, they were excited to give it a try. With UltimateGPT, they were able to instantly automate in 5 languages simply by connecting to their existing knowledge base.
This has contributed to an improved CSAT score, by providing more customers with the ability to make queries in the languages of choice.

The success story

Scaling support, without increasing costs

Automation has helped DiscoverCars to tackle their ticket backlog and meet seasonal spikes, all without having to hire and train new agents.

Intuitive, no-code solution

Ultimate’s AI solution was easy to learn and accessible without needing previous technical know-how. It also seamlessly integrated with their existing CRM, Zendesk.

Improving the customer experience

DiscoverCars now offers round-the-clock support thanks to Carla. Since getting started with automation, they’ve seen their CSAT increase too.

Quick time to value

Thanks to an personalized onboarding experience with a dedicated CSM, DiscoverCars was able to launch their bot – and reap the benefits of automation – both quickly and easily.

“We are a support team of 66 members, but with Carla we are 67. She’s already an agent here, and we even want to promote her! We expect her to take on the work of 4 or 5 agents in the coming years.”

Guleysha Hasanova

Automation and Helpdesk Manager, DiscoverCars

Next on their automation journey

Having already tried and loved Ultimate’s generative AI offering, UltimateGPT, they’re excited to continue using it as it evolves further. Right now, the latest version is powered by GPT4. They feel so confident in the capabilities of this generative AI solution that they’ve also decided to proudly feature Carla on the front page of their website, rather than gated behind a login. As a forward-thinking business, they know that automation will continue to help future-proof their CX.

Technologies

Ultimate: Chat automation Zendesk: A CRM Platform

Partners

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CIONET’s Cyber Circle: a new three-event programme exclusively focusing on the most urgent, complex, and high-impact challenges in cybersecurity today. Launched in 2026, this initiative brings together CISOs, CIOs, and senior IT executives with a strong interest in cybersecurity for three curated gatherings each year. As part of CIONET’s trusted executive community, the Cyber Circle provides a confidential, peer-driven environment to exchange insights, share real-world experiences, and address evolving cyber threats. Each session is designed to foster strategic dialogue, strengthen resilience, and elevate cybersecurity as a core driver of business value.

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CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.