Telefónica’s alliance with Microsoft and Open Gateway’s advances: protagonists at MWC24

Once again this year, Chema Alonso, Telefónica’s Chief Digital Officer (CDO) and CEO of Telefónica Innovación Digital, shared the company’s most important milestones in his talk “We are (re) creating the future of Smart Digital Services” at the Telefónica stand at the Mobile World Congress, highlighting Telefónica’s alliance with Microsoft and the progress of the Open Gateway initiative. In this context, Chema Alonso brought to the fore the organisation’s success stories, in which he pointed out the value of collaborations with major clients, such as Itaú bank in Brazil and Vinted in Spain.  

First of all, Chema Alonso, together with Jason Zander, EVP, Strategic Missions and Technologies at Microsoft, presented the agreement with the North American company. Telefónica’s CDO detailed what this alliance consists of, in which Telefónica will integrate Azure Al Studio into Kernel, the company’s digital ecosystem. Secondly, Chema Alonso’s inaugural talk at the Mobile World Congress reviewed the most significant Telefónica Open Gateway success stories, highlighting all the progress made during 2023 and part of 2024. Among other information, he assessed the commercial launches and progress of the initiative in Brazil, Spain and Germany.   

Telefónica has strengthened its partnership with Microsoft to incorporate generative artificial intelligence in Kernel, through Azure Al Studio. In this way, the Spanish company will be able to connect its data with generative AI language models, thus guaranteeing its customers’ privacy.  

At Telefónica Kernel, which originated in 2017, it is the basis of the digital ecosystem on which the company quickly and efficiently develops new products and services. It is specially designed for identity management, customer qualification and privacy, providing standardised and unified information for all products and services offered by the company.  

Telefónica, aware of the boom in generative AI, wanted to get ahead of the future challenges of the market and has integrated this technology into Kernel, all through Azure Al Studio. This move will help the company access the platform’s digital capabilities in a seamless manner, while complying with the latest privacy regulations.  

Chema Alonso, aware of the importance of effective data processing, commented that it was a priority to “guarantee our customers’ privacy” while “leveraging LLM and SLM”. Jason Zander, Microsoft’s representative at the talk, endorsed Alonso’s words and announced that Telefónica will be one of the operators included in the Azure Programmable Connectivity preview service, which simplifies developer access to telco network APIs.  

Chema Alonso also highlighted the progress that Open Gateway has made since its launch at the 2023 Mobile World Congress. In total, Telefónica has developed eleven APIs, which are already available in Brazil, Spain and Germany.  

Among the real cases mentioned is the Brazilian bank Itaú, one of Brazil’s leading financial institutions. In collaboration with Infobip and other Brazilian operators, it has implemented Telefónica Open Gateway’s SIM Swap API, which helps prevent fraud when validating transactions. The same use case is that of Daycoval bank, also in Brazil, which uses the SIM Swap API to check if there has been a recent change of SIM card and phone number when customers open a new account with the institution.  

Alonso mentioned the case of the Brazilian ground transport company Frete.com, which uses Open Gateway’s Know Your Customer - Match API to verify its customer data, as well as the telephone number. In this way, the persons registered in the application can be verified with assurances.  

Finally, he mentioned another success story, but in Spain. One of the most prominent has been Vinted, a leading second-hand fashion e-commerce firm, which is going to implement Open Gateway’s Number Verification API, in order to reinforce customer security in the application.  

Through the Telefónica Virtual Stand you will be able to immerse yourself in the Mobile World Congress and follow all the talks live. You will also be able to discover all the demos presented by the company, as well as interact with the company’s gurus. To do this, you can access it from any device, from anywhere. Simply follow this link to discover and enjoy all the exciting news that the Mobile World Congress has to offer.  

Telefónica Open Gateway also offers a free Developer Hub space, where developers will be able to try out APIs, create use cases and test new services. Join now by filling in the form.  

In addition, through the Telefónica Open Gateway Partner Program you will be able to collaborate with our team to develop innovative services aimed at B2B companies or the B2B2C market. Register in the Partner Program now and enjoy all the benefits.  

Finally, get the latest news about the initiative, API updates and highlights of Telefónica Open Gateway events by subscribing to our newsletter.