Unleashing the Potential: How Generative AI is transforming Telecom

The telecom industry has been evolving at a rapid pace, with the introduction of new technologies and innovations constantly changing the landscape. One of the latest trends that has been gaining attraction in the industry is the use of Gen AI. This cutting-edge technology has the potential to revolutionize the way telecom companies operate and interact with their customers.

What is Generative AI?

Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that goes beyond the narrow focus of specific tasks. Unlike traditional AI, it is designed to mimic human reasoning and decision-making processes, making it more versatile and adaptable. This allows it to handle a wide variety of complex tasks, making it a monetizable asset for the telcos.

It is projected that the market size of global AI in telecommunications will reach $15 billion by 2027, up from $11.89 billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 42% during 2021–2027.

Use Cases of Generative AI in telecom industry:

1. Enhancing Customer Experience with AI-Powered Chatbot: One way that Gen AI is revolutionizing the telecom industry is through improved customer service and support. AI-powered chatbots are now being used to handle customer inquiries and provide support around the clock, reducing the need for human intervention and increasing customer satisfaction. These chatbots quickly provide information to customers, which helps to streamline the customer service process and improve overall communication while negating the possibility of human error.

This is also helping telcos become Digital-First.

For example, Vodafone’s Youth brand VOXI has launched a large language model generative AI chatbot to enhance customer experience by engaging in human-like interactions with customers and managing more sophisticated customer requests. It was built in collaboration with Accenture with the aim to accelerate the telco’s adoption of AI throughout the business.

2. Network Optimization: Gen AI is capable of analyzing vast amounts of data and identifying patterns and trends that humans may miss. By utilizing AI algorithms, telecom companies can detect anomalies in real-time, such as unexpected traffic spikes and equipment malfunctions. This proactive approach is helping telcos to improve network reliability and performance, ultimately resulting in a better experience for customers.

3. Data-Driven Sales & Marketing: Through its data analytics capabilities, Gen AI is helping telecom companies better understand customer behavior and preferences and create personalized marketing campaigns by analyzing customer data including purchasing history. This will help telcos target their customers with relevant and timely offers, leading to higher conversion rates and increased revenue.

At MWC24, Deutsche Telekom introduced its goal of creating the first-ever app-free smartphone where an AI assistant will replace the countless apps on a smartphone. This generative interface is powered by Brain.ai, which will be able to help users with planning trips, shopping, creating videos, or editing photos through voice commands.

4. Predictive Maintenance: Telecom companies rely heavily on their infrastructure to provide uninterrupted services to their customers. They can use Gen AI to help predict potential equipment failures. For example, Gen AI can predict when a specific tower antenna or the building structure is likely to experience issues or require maintenance. By recognizing these patterns early, AI allows service providers to take preventive measures, improving the overall network resilience and profitability of the company.

One of Bell Canada's AI use cases is predicting environmental events like snowstorms or heavy rains, which may cause network outages. This proactive approach enhances resource allocation and facilitates effective workforce coordination.

5. Improving Network Security: With the increasing number of cyber threats, network security is a top priority for telecom companies. Gen AI machine learning models can analyze enormous amounts of user data from diverse sources, such as clickstream data, search history and purchase history. Through these historical data, AI identifies potential frauds and security breaches such as billing fraud, call re-routing, and potentially faulty software code in real-time.

6. Natural voice generation: Traditionally, telecom companies have been using pre-recorded messages for customer service and marketing purposes. However, these messages lack personalization and can often sound robotic and monotonous. With Gen AI, companies can now create human-like voices that can interact with customers more naturally and conversationally.

Vodafone Germany has made a major upgrade to its subscriber digital assistant, TOBi, by creating a real-world avatar for the assistant and equipping it with a real voice. Subscribers to Vodafone Germany can now talk to a real avatar about their concerns on the MyVodafone app.

Telefonica’s AI assistant Aura is not only limited to a chat-like interface but with the help of Gen AI, Aura responds to customers' queries with realistic voice commands.

Let's take a look at the recent Telco developments & Initiatives in Generative AI......

CelcomDigi has joined forces with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop innovative generative AI solutions. Through Amazon Bedrock, they'll create an AI Sandbox where CelcomDigi employees can experiment and build AI applications. They plan to integrate these generative AI solutions into various departments like HR, customer service, legal, and finance which will help to improve efficiency and potentially enhance user experience.

Deutsche Telekom introduces Business GPT, a secure and GDPR-compliant generative AI tool, to make generative AI safe and accessible for businesses. This solution offers a secure platform for businesses to utilize generative AI, ensuring compliance with strict privacy regulations like the GDPR and German data protection laws. By integrating internal company documents, Business GPT ensures data control while meeting rigorous IT security and data protection standards.

Vodafone has implemented generative AI technology to revolutionize the hotel experience. This innovative approach aims to enhance various aspects of hotel operations, including guest services, efficiency, and personalization. By leveraging generative AI, Vodafone seeks to transform the traditional hotel experience into a more seamless, immersive, and tailored one for guests.

Maxis has unveiled a groundbreaking partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to drive innovation in generative AI and 5G use cases. This partnership enables Maxis to leverage AWS's advanced machine learning capabilities for building, training, and deploying AI models at scale. The collaboration aims to harness the full potential of artificial intelligence to enhance Maxis's services and offerings, particularly in the context of 5G and enterprise solutions.

Telefónica and Microsoft announced a partnership to integrate Azure AI Studio into Telefónica Kernel 2.0 during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) opening session. This collaboration aims to enhance Kernel's capabilities with generative AI while prioritizing customer privacy through a Privacy-by-Design approach. Additionally, Telefónica will be part of Microsoft's Azure Programmable Connectivity service, facilitating developer access to network APIs for mobile application development.

Deutsche Telekom, e& Group, SingTel, SoftBank and SK Telecom officially launched the Global Telco AI Alliance (GTAA) and announced their plan to establish a joint venture. Their main goal of creating this joint venture is to develop a multilingual – i.e, German, English, Korean, etc. - large language model (LLM) tailored to the needs of telcos. The LLMs will be designed to help telcos improve their customer interactions via digital assistants and chatbots.

Orange Business, the enterprise arm of the telecom giant, is rolling out two GenAI solutions aimed at helping French businesses leverage emerging technology. One solution offers GPU-as-a-service, providing infrastructure for GenAI projects, while the other delivers GenAI applications via a SaaS platform. Hosted on Orange's Cloud Avenue platform, these solutions provide full control over data and costs.

While generative AI has shown tremendous potential in various industries, its adoption in the telecom industry is not without its challenges. Now, let us look at some of the major challenges:

Ethical concerns: As AI systems become more advanced and autonomous, there is a need for regulations and guidelines to ensure ethical practices are followed. This includes issues such as transparency in decision-making, accountability for AI actions, and the ethical use of customer data.

Data privacy and security concerns: Another challenging task for telecom companies will be to ensure the protection of sensitive customer information. Generative AI algorithms require a vast amount of data to function effectively, and this data often includes this sensitive customer information. Any data breach or misuse of customer data can have severe consequences for both the company and its customers.

Potential for bias in decision-making: Gen AI models depend on training data. If the data used to train the system is biased reflecting societal inequalities or historical prejudices, the AI will also be biased in its decision-making, leading to discriminatory practices and outcomes. This could result in discriminatory pricing and service offerings, as well as biased decision-making in customer service interactions.

Cost and Return on Investment (ROI): This technology is still relatively new and comes with a high cost of implementation and maintenance. For telecom companies, the cost of integrating generative AI into their operations may not justify the return on investment in the short term.

Lack of Expertise and Understanding: The realm of Gen AI is a complex and emerging field and there is a shortage of skilled professionals who have the knowledge and expertise to implement it effectively. Telecom companies also lack a clear understanding of how generative AI can be incorporated into their existing systems and processes.

Despite these challenges, with proper planning, strategy, and collaboration with experts, these challenges can be overcome, and the telecom industry can fully harness the power of generative AI to improve its operations, customer experience and overall business performance.

For more info on Gen AI telco best practices and strategies please contact [email protected]

About Us:

Wireless Federation is a Telecoms Research & Advisory Conglomerate HQ in London, UK focused on helping Telcos, and Regulators, profit in the connected Digital economy with evolving business models. For the last 2 decades, WF has been supporting 500 + Telcos, and 75 regulatory bodies as a research, knowledge and training partner.

The Mandate of WF is to provide its Telco customers with learning and best practices of what other Telcos are doing globally so you won't have to re-invent the wheel.