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Belgium 21-4-26 Invitation Only Physical english

From Victim to Victor: Cyber resilience is a means, providing Business Continuity the goal

In an era where every outage, audit, and cyberattack is a test of organisational survival, resilience has become the new currency of trust. While traditional perimeter security with: firewalls, intrusion detection, and scanners, remains essential, it is no longer a sufficient guarantee against modern threats that bypass these layers to penetrate your core systems. Today, enterprises require security and continuity that are built-in, not bolted-on. This CIONET roundtable focuses on the shift from reactive disaster recovery to proactive Business Continuity. Together with experts from HPE Zerto, we will explore how organisations can transform their recovery strategies into seamless continuity models.

Belgium 23-4-26 Country Members Physical & Virtual english

CIOFEST BELGIUM: Leadership in the Agentic Era

AI is no longer confined to supporting human tasks. We are entering the agentic era, where autonomous systems act on behalf of people and organisations. These agents can gather information, make decisions, negotiate terms, and even complete transactions. The implications extend well beyond technology; they touch the very foundations of business models, governance, and leadership. For CIOs and their peers, the rise of “machine customers” and autonomous partners poses new questions: Market impact: How do you compete and create value when some customers and suppliers are machines? Governance: What trust, compliance, and accountability structures are needed when AI acts independently in financial, procurement, or customer-facing processes? Leadership: How should CIOs guide their organisations in redefining roles, responsibilities, and decision-making when agents take over parts of the value chain?Business strategy: What opportunities emerge for new revenue models, platforms, and ecosystems shaped by autonomous interaction? This session shifts the focus from the mechanics of AI agents to the decisions that will shape leadership in the next decade. It is a call for CIOs to prepare for a future where relationships, markets, and strategies are no longer limited to human-to-human interactions, but also extend to human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions.

Belgium 29-4-26 Invitation Only Physical english

Building Future-Ready Application Ecosystems in the Age of Intelligent Automation

This CIONET workshop is a collaborative deep-dive into the practicalities of"rewiring the building" while it’s still occupied. Drawing onKyndryl’s deep heritage in mission-critical infrastructure and their latestresearch, we will dismantle the "hidden costs" of legacyenvironments. The conversation will focus on the transition from static,monolithic structures to composable architectures that allow intelligent agentsto operate seamlessly across hybrid landscapes.

April 2, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

Taming the SaaS Sprawl: Tracking spend, ownership, and usage before it slips out of control

SaaS gave business units freedom: quick onboarding, no infrastructure, and instant results. But over time, that freedom turned into fragmentation. Each team now buys, renews, and configures its own stack. HR has one platform, finance has another, and marketing probably has ten. The invoices keep coming, usage keeps dropping, and no one is sure who’s accountable for what.

May 12, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Product-Centric IT 2.0: Blending product and project thinking

Everyone says they’ve gone product-centric. In reality, most organisations live in a hybrid world where projects, products, and platforms overlap. Teams manage releases while still chasing deadlines, and governance still thinks in milestones rather than outcomes. The shift is underway, but the mindset hasn’t caught up.

May 19, 2026 Squad Session 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.

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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

CIONET Business Circles

Cyber Circle

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.

Telenet Business Leadership Circle

The Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.

Les Rencontres

Découvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !

Female Leadership Circle

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.