Survey says: Telecoms need AI

While many organizations worldwide have begun leveraging agentic AI, telecom Pacesetters are ahead of their competitors on piloting or implementing agentic AI for a variety of use cases, including assessing and addressing business risks (45% vs. 34% of others), detecting and managing cybersecurity risks (43% vs. 29%), monitoring and interacting with internal systems (43% vs. 26%), and responding to customer inquiries (40% vs. 21%).

“While GenAI boosts efficiency, agentic AI lets you rethink the entire process,” says Rohit Batra, general manager of manufacturing and telecom, media, and technology industries for ServiceNow. “For example, fixing a service issue that once took hours—talking to the customer, coordinating diagnostics—can now take under 10 minutes. Going forward, the AI can help prevent the issue for future customers.” 

The advent of GenAI has only widened the already challenging tech talent gap. Even telecoms with strategies for AI adoption often lack the skills and talent necessary to execute their plans. 

However, Pacesetters are taking steps to both hire new talent and upskill existing employees. Overall, 81% of Pacesetters have created training and support programs to upskill employees, while 67% host AI learning events to empower workers to use AI in their jobs.

Data management and governance are critical to AI strategy. Although most telecom firms maintain vast stores of data, they can extract value from only a small portion of it, says Batra.

Pacesetters build data management systems to clean, standardize, integrate, and optimize data. They prioritize governance frameworks that ensure that the data fed to their AI models is secure, reliable, and in compliance with regulatory guidelines.