Artificial intelligence is being applied more broadly and deeply in telecom networks; though AI and machine learning have been part of network testing and assurance tools for years, new advancements in compute, in models and in more holistic data governance and application of data are coming to fruition, along with the desire by telecom companies for their networks to run more efficiently and have higher levels of automation.
So what are the broad strokes of telecom operators’ expectations about the impact that AI will have, particularly in the context of the network? A number of recent telecom-focused surveys have attempted to take stock of this. Here are four.
-In a Ciena survey of more than 1,500 telecom and IT engineers and managers conducted during March of 2024, more than half of the respondents said that they think the use of AI will improve network operational efficiency by 40% or more.
A “key theme” among respondents was the belief that AI will “enhance network performance,” Ciena noted—and that telecom networks will have to boost their performance in order to cope with AI traffic, through deploying new traffic and network analysis software, upgrades to switches and routes and investment in fiber and 800G, among other things. “The survey highlights the optimistic long-term outlook of CSPs regarding AI’s ability to enhance the network as well as the need for strategic planning and investments in infrastructure and expertise to fully realize the benefits,” said Jürgen Hatheier, Ciena’s international CTO.
As an aside, the survey also covered how AI might be monetized—and some of the opportunities directly relate to a telecom service provider’s ability to provide specific or guaranteed levels of assurance. For example, 34% of survey respondents said that they expect AI-related revenues to come from being able to charge for differentiation on quality of service for connectivity.
-In Nvidia’s second annual survey of more than 400 telecom professionals—which, it declared, “[defined] the state of AI in telecommunications in 2024—the company concluded that it saw increased AI adoption and enthusiasm, even though telecom is still in the early phase of AI investment. Specific to the use of generative AI, Nvidia’s survey found that while the top use cases were for improving customer care and employee productivity, nearly half of survey respondents (48%) were investing in gen AI for network operations and management, while 40% cited network planning and design. Other AI use cases that telcos said they were investing in included security (42%), network predictive maintenance (37%) and network field operations (34%).
Forty percent of respondents said that they were planning to scale their investments to six or more AI use cases in 2024, and 96% planned to either maintain or increase their AI-related spending this year.
-In an Ericsson survey of more than 80 CSP professionals around the world, conducted with Arthur D. Little, 63% of those respondents said that they saw optimizing current network operations as one of the main benefits of AI; Ericsson said that the primary benefits were expected in anomaly detection and management. “Many CSPs have automated what they can to cope with the increasing complexity. To take automation to the next level, companies need AI, as it generates insights that enable the automation of things the company may not have previously known,” the NEM concluded.
CSPs were also bullish on the expected return from their AI investments. A majority of CSPs surveyed—51%—said that they think AI can result in IT and network operating expenditure reductions, and an annual ROI between 5-10%.
-An Amdocs survey earlier this year, conducted by Analysys Mason, focused specifically on some of the expectations of the telecom industry around generative AI. More than 20% of the CSPs surveyed said that they had already implemented gen AI solutions, with another 32% busy running proofs-of-concept. While 84% of respondents expected gen AI to have a significant impact on their software development, 81% also said that they expect network management to be impacted by gen AI. This was particularly anticipated to happen around increased capabilities for automation: 75% of survey respondents said that they expected that integrating GenAI with operational systems “will expand the range of automated actions and tasks that operational systems can perform.”
While telecom service providers were exploring a number of options for deployment, 84% of CSPs said that they expected to deploy gen AI as an embedded feature via vendor OSS/BSS applications.
