Speech AI company Sanas is deepening its investment in the Philippines by appointing Jack Madrid, current president and CEO of the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), as Sanas Ambassador, Philippines, effective 11 October 2026. Christopher Venturina joins as director of business development. Madrid brings over two decades of experience and led the Philippine IT-BPM sector to surpass $40 billion in annual revenues whilst supporting approximately 1.9 million workers. At Sanas, he will help strengthen relationships with enterprises, BPO providers, and technology partners. Sanas, which works with more than 200 enterprises globally and processes millions of live voice interactions daily, was recently ranked number 8 on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies.

Sanas deepens Philippine investment, taps IBPAP chief Jack Madrid to lead market expansion. Aug 19, 2026, 8:04 PM ET Jack Madrid joins as Sanas Ambassador, Philippines and Christopher Venturina as Director of Business Development to strengthen relationships with enterprises, BPO providers, and technology partners across the Philippines. MANILA, Philippines, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - The Philippines has built a global reputation for delivering customer experiences at scale. Now, as artificial intelligence reshapes the way businesses connect with customers, Speech AI company Sanas is strengthening its presence in the country to help shape the future of customer experience. Effective October 11, 2026, Sanas will appoint Jack Madrid, current President and CEO of the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), as Sanas Ambassador, Philippines, and Christopher Venturina as Director of Business Development, Philippines. The appointments come as Sanas strengthens its local operations, expands customer investments, and builds deeper relationships with enterprises, BPO providers, and technology partners in the country. The Philippines is a key market for Sanas as it brings AI into an industry where Filipino talent already plays a leading role in serving customers around the world. Sanas currently works with more than 200 enterprises globally and processes millions of live voice interactions every day. The company was also recently ranked No. 8 on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's Fastest-Growing Private Companies, while ranking No. 1 in both AI & Data and California. "The Philippines has spent decades building one of the world's strongest customer experience industries. What AI changes is not the value of that talent, but what people can accomplish with the right technology," said Sharath Keshava Narayana, Co-Founder and CEO of Sanas. "We are investing in the Philippines because we believe the country can play a leading role in defining how people and AI work together to create better customer experiences." A familiar industry leader for a new era Madrid joins the company as Sanas Ambassador, Philippines at a pivotal moment for the Philippine IT-BPM industry, bringing more than two decades of experience across banking, technology, digital commerce, media, and industry leadership. As President and CEO of IBPAP, Madrid helped lead the country's IT-BPM sector through significant transformation and growth. Under his leadership, the industry surpassed US$40 billion in annual revenues and supported approximately 1.9 million Digital Filipino Workers, reinforcing the Philippines' position as a global leader in technology-enabled services. His move to Sanas brings together two sides of a conversation increasingly important to the Philippine economy: the country's strength in human-led customer service and the growing role of AI in the workplace. "The conversation around AI and the Philippines should not simply be about what technology can replace. It should be about what technology can help Filipino talent do better," said Jack Madrid, Sanas Ambassador, Philippines. "The Philippines has an opportunity to lead the next chapter of global customer experience by combining the strengths of its people with technology that helps them communicate, perform, and connect more effectively. That is what makes this opportunity with Sanas particularly exciting to me." Throughout his career, Madrid has held senior leadership positions at organizations including Citibank, Dell Technologies, Yahoo! Philippines, MTV Philippines, Ayala Corporation, and Multiply.com. He has also been a prominent voice on AI adoption, workforce readiness, digital infrastructure, and the future of work. Turning AI interest into business impact Sanas is also strengthening its commercial presence in the Philippines with the appointment of Venturina, who brings extensive experience across the country's outsourcing and customer experience ecosystem. In his new role, Venturina will focus on expanding Sanas' relationships with enterprise customers, BPO providers, and technology partners in the Philippines and across the region. "The conversation has moved from whether AI will affect customer experience to how companies can use it effectively and responsibly," said Christopher Venturina, Director of Business Development, Philippines, Sanas. "Our role is to help organizations turn that interest into practical applications that support employees, make conversations more effective, and deliver better customer experiences." That shift is increasingly relevant as Philippine enterprises and BPOs navigate a global market where customers expect faster, more personalized, and more seamless interactions, while businesses face growing pressure to improve productivity and performance. For Sanas, the opportunity is not simply to automate customer interactions, but to help organizations combine technology with human expertise to create better experiences. "Technology should ultimately make it easier for people to understand and connect with one another," said Shawn Zhang, CTO and Co-Founder of Sanas. "The Philippines has shown the world what exceptional customer experience looks like. We believe AI can help Filipino professionals and the organizations they work with take that capability even further." With Madrid and Venturina joining its Philippine leadership team, Sanas is strengthening its presence in a market it sees as central to the future of customer experience. The future of customer experience will be defined by the combination of AI and human expertise. The Philippines is uniquely positioned to lead that future, pairing world-class talent with technologies that help people communicate more effectively, perform at a higher level, and deliver better outcomes for customers. About Sanas Sanas is a real-time Speech AI platform built to power global enterprise and communications platforms. Founded in 2021 in Palo Alto, California, Sanas enables speech to be understood clearly and naturally across languages, accents, and environments. The platform provides real-time speech enhancement, accent transformation, and language understanding that can be embedded directly into applications, platforms, and carrier networks. In 2026, Sanas was named the No. 1 AI & Data company in America on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies and also earned the No. 1 ranking in California and No. 8 overall. Learn more at Sanas.ai. SOURCE Sanas NOTE: This content is not written by or endorsed by "WOWK", its advertisers, or Nexstar Media Inc.

Sanas ranks No. 1 in AI & Data and No. 8 overall on 2026 Inc. 5000. Sanas has been ranked No. 8 overall on the 2026 Inc. 5000, placing the speech AI company among the fastest-growing private businesses in the United States. The company also secured the No. 1 position in the AI & Data category and ranked first among California-based companies on this year's list. The recognition comes as enterprise adoption of voice AI moves beyond experimentation toward real-time deployment in customer-facing operations. Sanas says its technology is now used by more than 200 enterprises across industries including healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, travel and retail, processing millions of live voice interactions each day. For Sanas, the ranking therefore represents more than a growth milestone. It provides another indication of increasing enterprise demand for AI technologies capable of operating directly within high-volume business workflows, where performance, reliability and the quality of human interaction are critical. Enterprise adoption drives speech AI growth. Founded in 2020, Sanas has built a real-time speech AI platform designed to reduce communication barriers during live conversations. Its technology includes accent and language translation, noise cancellation, speech enhancement and speech intelligence. The company reports deployments across organizations including UnitedHealth Group, Comcast, Cigna, Vanguard, American Express, Wells Fargo, Wyndham and Robinhood. It also operates through business process outsourcing providers including Teleperformance, Alorica, Concentrix, Foundever, iBex, iQor and TaskUs. That footprint places Sanas within a particularly active area of enterprise AI investment. While generative AI has dominated much of the enterprise technology discussion, organizations are increasingly looking for applications that can demonstrate value inside specific operational environments rather than simply provide another general-purpose AI interface. Real-time voice interactions represent one such environment. Customer service operations generate large volumes of conversations in which communication quality can directly influence customer experience, agent effectiveness and operational performance. Sharath Keshava Narayana, Co-Founder and CEO of Sanas, said the Inc. 5000 recognition reflects both growing adoption of the company's technology and the broader mission behind its development. "This milestone reflects the rapid adoption of our technology, the dedication of our team, and the value we're delivering to organizations." Narayana added that the company remains focused on creating a future in which people can communicate and be understood without barriers. From accent bias to enterprise speech infrastructure. Sanas traces its origins to Stanford University, where its founders began exploring the problem after seeing the impact accent bias had on a friend's livelihood. That starting point has since evolved into a broader enterprise technology proposition. Rather than treating speech purely as an interface for AI assistants, Sanas is positioning real-time speech processing as an infrastructure layer that can operate during live interactions. Shawn Zhang, CTO and Co-Founder of Sanas, said communication remains fundamental across customer interactions, workplace conversations and emerging AI experiences. "Communication is fundamental to every customer interaction, workplace conversation, and AI experience." For enterprises operating globally distributed customer service environments, the underlying issue is becoming increasingly relevant. Customer interactions routinely cross languages, accents and geographic boundaries, while AI is simultaneously becoming more deeply embedded in contact centers and other communication-intensive workflows. The next stage of speech AI adoption will therefore depend not only on whether technology can understand or generate speech, but on whether it can improve communication reliably and unobtrusively at enterprise scale. A broader test for enterprise AI. Sanas' growth also illustrates an important shift in the enterprise AI market. Organizations are increasingly under pressure to move beyond proofs of concept and identify AI applications that can produce measurable operational outcomes. Technologies embedded directly into existing workflows have an advantage in this environment because their impact can potentially be evaluated against established business measures such as productivity, service quality and customer experience. Speech AI is particularly interesting in this context because it operates at the intersection of automation and human interaction. The objective is not necessarily to remove the person from the process, but to use AI to improve the conditions under which that interaction takes place. This distinction could become increasingly important as enterprises reconsider where AI should augment employees and where autonomous technology should take over tasks entirely. Inc. 5000 highlights a fast-growing AI market. The 2026 Inc. 5000 ranks privately held U.S. companies according to percentage revenue growth between 2022 and 2025. Companies must meet specific revenue, independence and operating-history requirements to qualify. Across this year's 5,000 companies, the median three-year revenue growth rate was 130%, according to Inc., while listed businesses collectively added more than 627,000 jobs over the three-year period. Sanas' No. 8 overall position puts it near the top of that wider group, while its No. 1 ranking in AI & Data places its growth within the context of an increasingly competitive AI market. Mike Hofman, Editor-in-Chief of Inc., said the companies included in this year's ranking demonstrate the combination of resilience, decision-making and customer focus required to sustain rapid growth. The 2026 honorees will be recognized at the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala in Dallas in October, with the top 500 companies also appearing in the fall issue of Inc. Magazine. Speech AI moves deeper into enterprise operations. The significance of Sanas' growth will ultimately depend on what follows the ranking. Enterprise AI is entering a phase in which adoption alone is becoming a less meaningful measure of success. Vendors increasingly need to demonstrate that their technologies can operate reliably at scale, integrate into established workflows and create outcomes that justify continued investment. Sanas already has one important indicator in its favor: its technology is being used in live, high-volume enterprise environments rather than remaining confined to experimental deployments. Its rapid growth suggests that speech is emerging as another important layer of enterprise AI infrastructure. As organizations look for practical applications that connect AI investment with customer and employee experience, real-time communication technology could become a much more significant part of the enterprise AI landscape. ERP news Editorial Team. The ERPNews Editorial Team covers global developments in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), enterprise software, cloud platforms, AI, automation, and digital transformation, providing independent news and editorial analysis for senior business and technology leaders. Its reporting focuses on market signals, strategic shifts, and enterprise impact across the ERP and enterprise technology ecosystem. For editorial inquiries, please contact: | [email protected]