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Emerging Contact Center Technology
February 18 | 12PM ET
Philipp Heltewig is the Chief AI Officer at NiCE and General Manager of NiCE Cognigy, a global leader in agentic AI for customer experience.
A German-Australian entrepreneur, Philipp holds degrees from universities in Germany, Australia and the US. Previously, Philipp held key positions at SAP and Sitecore, where he established Sitecore’s operations in Australia and New Zealand and led Sitecore’s global sales teams.
In 2016, he co-founded Cognigy, alongside Sascha Poggemann and Benjamin Mayr, steering its evolution into a recognized market leader for enterprise Conversational AI solutions. Under his leadership, Cognigy served thousands of customers worldwide and was repeatedly named a leader by Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and ISG. The company launched Agentic AI solutions now acclaimed as the most powerful for customer experience on the market.
Cognigy was acquired by NiCE Ltd. in September 2025 and now operates as NiCE Cognigy. Philipp now serves as Chief AI Officer at NiCE and GM of NiCE Cognigy, where he leads the strategic direction of the company’s AI innovation and platform evolution as part of NiCE, a global CX leader.
Agenda Day 1
10:45 AM The New Rules of Customer Contact: The Agentic Shift and What's Coming Next in 2026
The next evolution of customer service is already taking shape: Agentic AI Agents that go beyond answering questions to actively completing tasks, orchestrating workflows, and driving outcomes across channels. In 2026, the winners won’t be the companies that experiment the most — they’ll be the ones that operationalize AI the fastest, with the right guardrails and CX strategy.
In this candid fireside chat, Philipp Heltewig, Chief AI Officer at NiCE, joins CCW Digital analyst Brian Cantor to unpack what’s changing in 2026: the emerging technologies powering AI Agents, the new operating frameworks required to scale them responsibly, and the use cases delivering measurable impact today.
Philipp will also share a forward-looking perspective on what enterprises can expect with NiCE Cognigy and NiCE technologies combined — and how this duo changes the speed, governance, and customer experience potential of AI at scale.
