Stonebranch UserVerse 2024 Online Keynote

Watch the full keynote on-demand — Gartner's new SOAP Magic Quadrant, UAC v7.7, self-service automation, and a first look at generative AI in Universal Automation Center.

In October 2024, Stonebranch held its first UserVerse event — a hybrid format combining an online keynote with in-person sessions in Nuremberg, Copenhagen, and Columbus. This is the full on-demand recording of the online keynote.

The session opens with CEO Giuseppe Damiani and CMO Scott Davis discussing Stonebranch's placement in the Gartner Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms (SOAP) Magic Quadrant — the first Magic Quadrant Gartner has published in this space in nearly a decade. Damiani explains why the shift to hybrid IT drove Gartner to define a new category, how Stonebranch competes as the only single-platform vendor in the leader quadrant, and what five times growth in five years reflects about market fit. He also addresses why workload automation migration is compared to open heart surgery, and why Stonebranch has completed every migration project it has taken on.

CTO Peter Baljet follows with an industry analysis grounded in Stonebranch's 2024 State of IT Automation survey. Key findings: hybrid IT has grown from 34% to 68% adoption in two years, 86% of organizations are growing automation investment, and automation tool sprawl has become a mounting cost problem. Baljet explains how SOAP tools function as an orchestration backplane — consolidating control across domain-specific automation tools rather than replacing them — and previews UAC's platform strategy: REST APIs, OpenAPI standard publication, SDK for extension developers, webhooks, and generative AI integration.

CPO Gwyn Clay details what's new in UAC v7.7: more than three dozen core enhancements including expanded SSO, HashiCorp Vault support for password management, IBM iSeries and z/OS improvements, and a major push on API quality and OpenAPI documentation — the foundation for everything from code auto-generation to GPT client integration. Nils Buer, VP of Solution Management, then demos the Universal Portal, Stonebranch's new self-service interface for non-technical users, showing how citizen automators can monitor, rerun, and interact with automation workflows without touching the UAC controller.

The keynote closes with a first look at generative AI capabilities built into UAC — natural language product queries, self-service automation execution via chat, and code generation using the OpenAPI specification.

Key Highlights

  • Stonebranch named in Gartner's new SOAP Magic Quadrant as the only single-platform vendor in the leader quadrant
  • CEO Giuseppe Damiani on triple-digit customer growth and why every Stonebranch migration project has succeeded
  • CTO Peter Baljet on hybrid IT growth, automation tool sprawl, and the SOAP platform model
  • UAC v7.7: SSO enhancements, HashiCorp Vault, IBM iSeries and z/OS updates, OpenAPI standard publication
  • First look at Universal Portal: self-service automation for citizen automators
  • Generative AI in UAC: natural language queries, automation execution via chat, code generation

About the Presenters

Giuseppe Damiani — CEO, Stonebranch

Peter Baljet — CTO, Stonebranch

Gwyn Clay — Chief Product Officer, Stonebranch

Nils Buer — Director of Product Strategy (EMEA), Stonebranch

Scott Davis — CMO, Stonebranch