Why Telco Operations Are Under Pressure to Adopt Gen AI
Operations leaders in telecommunications are facing a clear signal: adopt Gen AI or fall behind. A Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey, sponsored by AWS, reports that 83% of leaders think organisations that ignore Gen AI will lose ground to competitors.
The catch is readiness. While 60% say Gen AI is a priority, only 48% feel prepared to adopt it. For telcos dealing with legacy infrastructure, regulatory oversight, and complex processes, that gap is more than an IT problem-it's an operations challenge.
The gap: urgency vs. readiness
Gen AI is seen as essential, but most operators aren't ready to deploy it across the network or customer channels. That misalignment delays value and increases risk as competitors move forward.
As Abid Rahman puts it: "Gen AI is not optional. Every industry and every company should be looking at Gen AI. If they don't, they're going to fall behind."
Risk, governance, and the ops mandate
Risk is the top blocker, with 56% citing ethical, legal, and cybersecurity concerns. In telco, where customer data and network integrity are core, caution is warranted-but inaction is its own risk.
Edoardo Conte frames it plainly: "It's only risky if you don't understand it. The ecosystem is changing and if you rush in on some solution which is not complete or not a good fit for you, it won't bring all the value you expect."
Two other barriers stand out: 50% lack a clear implementation roadmap and 46% lack organisational guidelines for Gen AI use. The good news: 53% are upgrading data/tech infrastructure and 53% are building guidance and governance frameworks.
Where Gen AI helps telco operations now
- Network fault prediction to reduce outages and SLA breaches.
- Automated root cause analysis to cut mean time to resolution.
- Traffic optimisation for performance and cost efficiency.
- Customer experience: service personalisation, automated billing query resolution, and real-time assist for agents.
The objectives are clear and measurable: 63% target higher organisational productivity and 63% target greater employee efficiency. Another 45% prioritise better customer experience, while 44% aim for cost reduction. Restworld's example shows the upside: lightening recruiter workloads by 10,000-12,000 conversations a month, with potential savings near 20%-a pattern telco contact centres can replicate.
A practical roadmap for ops leaders
- Define the "first win." Pick 1-2 use cases tied to KPI gaps (MTTR, first-contact resolution, truck rolls, AHT, NPS, churn).
- Audit data readiness. Map data sources, quality, access rights, and privacy constraints for each use case.
- Establish guardrails early. Write usage guidelines, human-in-the-loop policies, and audit requirements before pilots scale.
- Prototype fast, in production-like conditions. Prove value with a constrained dataset, then expand.
- Integrate with security and legal. Bake in compliance reviews and red-teaming for model prompts, outputs, and data flow.
- Instrument everything. Track business impact, latency, error rates, drift, and opt-outs; sunset what doesn't move KPIs.
- Upskill the front line. Train NOC teams, field ops, and contact centre leaders on prompt patterns and exception handling.
Build vs. buy-and the AWS factor
The survey was sponsored by AWS, which provides infrastructure many enterprises use for Gen AI workloads. Whether you build in-house or buy a managed service, focus on secure data access, observability, and integration with your OSS/BSS and CRM stack.
For a deeper look at enterprise adoption trends, see Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.
Rethink processes, not just tools
Gen AI isn't a bolt-on efficiency trick; it pushes a process rethink. As Abid Rahman says: "Gen AI is a tool. In fact, it's a superpower." The question for operations is bigger than productivity: which workflows can be redesigned, automated, or removed altogether?
"Does it really make sense to continue to do the same type of work in the same way as before?" he asks. Treat Gen AI as the trigger to simplify processes, compress handoffs, and reassign people to higher-value tasks.
Quick-start checklist for telco ops
- Pick one network use case and one customer use case.
- Stand up a cross-functional "AI in ops" squad (Ops, Data, Sec, Legal).
- Draft a one-page policy: data boundaries, human oversight, escalation.
- Run a 60-90 day pilot with weekly KPI reviews.
- Scale only after you hit a pre-agreed threshold (e.g., 15-25% MTTR reduction or 10-20% AHT reduction).
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