Building an AI Strategy for Telecommunications

This report examines the current state of AI adoption among communication service providers (CSPs), focusing on insights gathered from decision-makers in 20 leading global CSPs. The objective is to understand their AI journeys, which began around 2016-2017 for progressive operators and gained momentum with the rise of Generative AI (GenAI) in the past 12-15 months. The findings indicate that while many CSPs are ramping up investments in AI, the focus has shifted significantly towards GenAI, with operators identifying over 100 use cases. However, few of these have been implemented in production. The report also distinguishes between traditional predictive AI and GenAI, noting that while predictive AI has seen limited deployment, GenAI is becoming a central topic in discussions about future strategies. The report suggests that the enthusiasm for GenAI may also lead to renewed interest in predictive AI as both technologies can complement each other in various applications.