Alianza founder Brian Beutler discusses the company’s Crux platform, his ambition to build an independent global business rooted in Utah, and the perspective he gains from search-and-rescue service following his EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 Mountain West recognition.
Pleasant Grove, Utah
Alianza’s newest communications platform takes its name from the hardest part of a climb.
For Brian Beutler, the Pleasant Grove company’s founder and CEO, the connection is personal. A rock climber who also serves with Utah County Search and Rescue, he described a route’s “crux” as the section where preparation is put to the test.
“Your skill, your fitness, your endurance, your equipment, your preparation all converge at this one point on the climb,” Beutler said.
The company applied that name to Alianza Crux, a platform designed to connect telecommunications networks with artificial intelligence applications. It represents another step in Beutler’s ambition to build a durable global business that maintains its Utah roots.
That ambition provides context for his recognition as an award winner in the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 Mountain West program. EY announced the regional winners June 19, following selection by an independent panel of judges. The winners advance to national consideration in November.
In a recent conversation with TechBuzz, Beutler discussed the company’s next direction, the people and circumstances that helped it get here, and the experiences outside work that influence how he leads.
Giving credit beyond the founder
Beutler is quick to redirect attention from himself to the company.
He described the EY honor as “a company recognition” and credited the employees who helped Alianza navigate difficult periods. He also pointed to the entrepreneurs, investors and community builders whose work made Utah a more supportive place to start a business.
“We’re harvesting where other people planted,” he said.
Alianza’s history includes a 2005 BYU business plan competition, early backing from Utah investors and a difficult fundraising period during the Great Recession. In TechBuzz’s December 2024 profile, Beutler described the loyalty of investors, employees and customers who stayed with the company when its future was uncertain.
That history helps explain his commitment to the business. But he does not attribute its trajectory solely to determination.
Beutler described two broad categories of factors behind a company’s progress. One includes strategy, funding, hard work and finding a market for a product. The other includes conditions entrepreneurs cannot control, from the surrounding ecosystem to changes in customer needs.
“There are movements taking place in this market right now that are outside of our control,” he said.
His view makes room for both preparation and timing. A company can work to put itself in a position to benefit from a market change without claiming responsibility for creating every opportunity.
Connecting telephone networks with AI
Alianza works largely behind the brands consumers recognize. Its communications software helps telecommunications service providers deliver and modernize voice services.
With Crux, the company is addressing a related problem: how to connect those networks with AI applications without requiring each developer and operator to build a separate integration.
Alianza introduced the platform September 9. In its announcement, the company described three types of applications: systems that analyze conversations after a call, AI systems that handle conversations, and tools that assist people during live calls.
The platform also coordinates identity, consent and policies governing how communications data is processed and which applications can participate, according to Alianza.
One example came from SoundHound AI, whose executive described using Crux to let a business activate an AI voice service on its existing telephone number through its current provider. The intended benefit is to reduce the configuration work required before a business can begin using the service.
The broader shift, as Beutler described it, is from simply carrying a conversation to making information from that conversation useful afterward.
“The conversations we have are turning into durable artifacts that drive meaningful value after the conversation ends,” he said.
Alianza has also announced its acquisition of Skribby, which the company said would extend Crux into meeting platforms.
The rollout remains staged. In its September announcement, Alianza said Crux was available through a controlled release, with participating providers helping validate production uses and operating requirements. Broader commercial availability was planned for the first half of 2027.
For Beutler, the platform’s climbing-inspired name reflects the difficulty of connecting established communications infrastructure with newer AI services. The company’s task is to make those systems work together while retaining the controls that telephone providers and their customers require.
Building a buyer, not preparing a seller
Crux follows another significant change in Alianza’s business.
In March 2025, the company announced that it had completed its acquisition of Metaswitch from Microsoft, following the agreement announced in December 2024. The transaction expanded its communications portfolio and customer base.
Beutler views acquisitions as part of a longer-term strategy. He wants Alianza to demonstrate that a Utah company can become an acquirer and remain an independent business with international reach.
“We can be the buyer, not the seller,” he said.
That preference reflects his approach to entrepreneurship. He is less interested in starting a succession of companies than in developing expertise in one substantial problem.
“I want to do one company and I want to do it really well,” Beutler said. “And I want to master this one big technology problem that exists in the world.”
He sees an opportunity for Utah to build on its record of launching companies by retaining more businesses as they expand. For Alianza, he described independence and a lasting Utah presence as objectives rather than a predetermined outcome.
“I’m hopeful that we can create something durable and meaningful that has global impact, but that maintains its Utah roots,” he said.
A different perspective on an important day
Away from Alianza, Beutler’s search-and-rescue work gives him another way to think about responsibility.
He said he joined Utah County Search and Rescue in 2021 because he wanted an activity that connected him directly with people facing difficult circumstances. His work includes steep-angle rescues, and a call can require him to leave the office or change the day’s plans.
“I wanted something that grounded me,” he said.
The contrast can be immediate. A meeting that seems important at the start of an afternoon takes on a different significance when someone needs help on a mountain.
“There are still people in my community every week, every day, having the worst day of their lives,” Beutler said.
He described the work as a reminder of how much lies beyond anyone’s control. It also brings him into contact with people whose immediate needs have little to do with the priorities that occupy a technology company.
That perspective connects with his earlier comments about Alianza. In business, he credits a team and an ecosystem rather than treating achievement as an individual accomplishment. In rescue work, he is one member of a team responding to circumstances no one would have chosen.
He hopes those experiences influence the way he treats the people who work with him and the customers who depend on the company.
Beutler said he wants to bring that perspective back to Alianza and “lead in a way that reflects an appreciation for what’s really important in the lives of our team members and our customers.”
Learn more at alianza.com.
Founded in 1986, Entrepreneur Of The Year has celebrated more than 11,000 ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses in the US, and it has since expanded to nearly 60 countries globally. The program honors many different types of business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit, and celebrates original founders who bootstrapped their business from inception or who raised outside capital to grow their company; transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory; and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to fortify it for the future.
The Entrepreneur Of The Year Mountain West program includes Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. As a 2026 regional award winner, Brian Beutler goes on to be considered for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards, to be presented at the annual Strategic Growth Forum®, one of the nation’s most prestigious gatherings of high-growth, market-leading companies. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then represent the US as they compete for the World Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award.