Step into the Future of CX - Experience AI Agents Live
October 13 - 14, 2026
| Free CX Network Webinar Series
Andreas Welsch is an internationally recognized AI leader, advisor, and speaker known for helping the world's leading enterprises turn technology hype into real business outcomes. Andreas is the Founder & Chief AI Strategist at Intelligence Briefing, the best-selling author of the AI Leadership Handbook and The HUMAN Agentic AI Edge, and the creator of several popular LinkedIn Learning courses on AI agents for business leaders.
For over two decades, including in global leadership roles at SAP, Andreas has advised Fortune 500 leaders on realizing business value from AI, accelerated the integration of AI across enterprise applications, and positioned SAP as the leader for Business AI. Prior to SAP, Andreas led global IT process automation projects.
Outside of work, Andreas contributes to academia as an Adjunct Professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of AI, Robotics, and Workplace Automation.
Day One - 13 October 2026
11:30 AM How to tell if you need an AI agent
Gartner estimates that only around 130 of the thousands of vendors that claim to sell agentic AI are genuinely agentic – hence the "agent washing" phenomenon, in which chatbots and RPA are rebranded as "agentic AI". The CX Network Advisory Board has said similar - "too many tools and too much hype". This manifests in practitioners spending lots of time investigating tools that were never suitable in the first place.
Fernanda Souza evaluates AI vendors for an organization delivering essential infrastructure and public services across the UK, and her opening question is never "is this product agentic?" Andreas Welsch was with SAP for years before going independent, and he argues that the industry's refusal to openly discussed what has actually been deployed leaves CX teams unable to benchmark against other teams. In this panel discussion, our speakers will address how to judge whether an AI agent belongs near customers when vendors are often cagey about questions and peers wont discuss what has worked.
This session will give attendees a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. We'll lay out a clear ladder of autonomy, from scripted to autonomous, and explain what each level can actually deliver to answer not "is this truly agentic?" and instead "which level of autonomy do I need?" We will also provide advice on the right questions to ask in demos and make a case that workflows aren't worse than AI agents – just suited to different tasks.
Attendees will learn:
- What are the four levels of autonomy and what can each deliver for CX?
- The questions to ask vendors during demos to ascertain if the product is genuinely agentic or a rebranded chatbot.
- How to recognize use cases for AI agents and know when a more traditional workflow is more appropriate
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