Dexatel: Microsoft’s SMS Authentication Shift Makes Multi-Channel Verification More Important, Podcast

By Doug Green “Don’t treat this as stop using SMS. Treat it as stop relying on only one channel.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Gegham Azatyan of Dexatel discusses Microsoft’s move away from directly providing SMS and voice authentication and why businesses should be preparing for a more diversified approach to user verification. Dexatel is a communications platform that helps businesses reach customers through SMS, voice and messaging applications including WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram through a unified API. Azatyan says Microsoft is shifting toward passkeys as the default authentication method and plans to complete the transition away from directly providing SMS and voice authentication by February 2027. That does not mean SMS disappears. Businesses will still be able to use SMS and voice authentication through external telecom providers, but Azatyan says the larger lesson is that companies should not depend on a single authentication channel. Security is one of the main drivers. Azatyan says AI is changing the economics of fraud by making phishing, social engineering and other attacks easier and cheaper to operate at scale. That creates greater pressure on enterprises, particularly financial institutions and other high-risk organizations, to use stronger authentication methods. At the same time, SMS remains important. Azatyan says startups, e-commerce companies, gaming providers and other digital businesses continue to use SMS-based verification because it is simple, fast to deploy and broadly available. Dexatel’s answer is a multi-channel model. Through Dexatel Verify, businesses can combine SMS with WhatsApp, voice, RCS and other channels while using intelligent fallback when the primary method is unavailable or inappropriate. The company is also developing AI-based fraud prevention that analyzes communications traffic and looks for suspicious behavior before messages are sent. “Our approach is not to say SMS is bad,” Azatyan says. “Use the right channel for the right situation, don’t depend on one channel, and detect fraud as early as possible.” That same strategy reflects Dexatel’s broader direction. Azatyan says the company is building communications infrastructure for the AI era, including fraud prevention, AI voice infrastructure and tools that allow AI agents to communicate with people across messaging, voice and verification channels. AI agents may make more decisions, he says, but they will still need reliable infrastructure to send a message, make a call, verify a user or begin a conversation. Visit Dexatel.com to learn more. The post Dexatel: Microsoft’s SMS Authentication Shift Makes Multi-Channel Verification More Important, Podcast appeared first on Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News.