AI: A Crucial Lifeline for the Telecom Industry's Future Growth

Usman Javaid, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Orange Business, has highlighted Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a pivotal opportunity for the telecommunications sector, suggesting it's "one of a few lifelines left for the telco industry." Speaking at the FutureNet World conference, Javaid explained that after years focused on cost-cutting and efficiency, AI offers a clear path for telcos to generate new revenue and move beyond being mere commodity connectivity providers.

Key takeaways:

• AI provides telcos a way to grow beyond cost-cutting initiatives.
• Orange Business supports enterprise AI comprehensively, covering infrastructure, platforms, and turnkey solutions, including sovereign AI services.
• Telcos like Orange and Telus are actively using network APIs and AI factories to escape the "dumb pipe" model and unlock new revenue streams.

Overcoming Enterprise AI Adoption Hurdles

Telcos can find success by providing the essential digital infrastructure that enterprises require for AI adoption. Javaid noted, "That's the first challenge enterprises face in deploying AI at scale."

A global survey of 400 enterprises by Orange Business shed light on these challenges:

• 43% stated their networks need modernization for AI.
• 83% recognized the need to optimize their cloud strategy, particularly the balance between public cloud and on-premises solutions.
• 96% indicated a need to enhance their security before they can broadly adopt AI.

Javaid refers to these as the "three C's": Cloud, connectivity, and cybersecurity. Beyond these, enterprises also face challenges with the AI platform layer—figuring out model deployment and data access—and require turnkey AI solutions.

Orange's Comprehensive AI Strategy

Orange Business has developed capabilities to address each of these enterprise needs.

On the infrastructure layer, Orange has launched a connectivity platform enabling enterprises to connect to data with a fully cloud-like experience. This includes multi-cloud network-as-a-service (NaaS), SD-WAN, and other security services, leveraging AI to improve threat and vulnerability detection.

Data and AI sovereignty is a core strength for Orange, according to Javaid. The company introduced a private cloud with a sovereign AI service across Europe in March 2024. Orange collaborates with Large Language Model (LLM) providers in Europe, allowing enterprises to deploy local LLMs.

For the platform layer, Orange offers Live Intelligence, designed to assist enterprises of various sizes in building generative AI systems. This platform is already utilized by 73,000 Orange employees.

At the solutions level, Orange provides a generative AI assistant for contact centers, developed in partnership with Microsoft using its Copilot platform. Additionally, Orange offers consulting and change management services to support AI integration.

Real World AI Applications for Enterprises

Javaid provided several examples of AI in action. A large healthcare provider utilizes an AI assistant to help alleviate the worldwide shortage of radiologists. Orange Business facilitated the complex networking required to connect radiology equipment across diverse environments, feed imagery into AI models, and deliver diagnoses to doctors, all while navigating multiple compliance jurisdictions.

In another instance, Orange Business supported a Parisian metropolitan area in deploying AI to 12,000 employees.

A utility company also benefited from Orange's AI solutions by streamlining field operations. Previously, field engineers spent approximately 90 minutes per week writing detailed work reports. Orange helped implement an AI assistant that allows engineers to generate and submit these reports via voice command, significantly reducing administrative time.

Orange Business integrates network-as-a-service and AI systems with enterprise applications using APIs. For example, enterprises can use Orange Business network data to measure foot traffic in specific locations through mobile data. "If it's a retail center, how many people show up to that location at a certain time of the day? You can take the mobile data to do that type of forecasting, which is relevant for sales and marketing," Javaid explained. Population density information is also available via an API, where users can input coordinates and receive data on people density.

The Crucial Role of APIs in Telecom AI

To fully leverage these services, Javaid emphasized the necessity for telcos to collaborate on consistent and standard APIs through organizations like the Camara Project and GSMA Open Gateway.

"Network APIs are essential for telcos that want to succeed in the future," he stated. "It's a minimum that an enterprise expects. Customers want to consume everything as an API."

He further added, "I cannot expose a capability to an enterprise customer just through a user interface. Every enterprise is also looking for APIs so that they can consume the services that we offer as part of their overall solutions. Every product that we develop, every capability, is available as an API."

As Javaid indicated, telcos globally are increasingly turning to AI, particularly AI factories (data centers optimized for AI workloads), to diversify beyond commodity connectivity. You can explore this trend further in a free Fierce Network Research report: "AI sovereignty: Seizing the opportunity for transformative telco infrastructure investment".

During a panel at the FutureNet World conference, Bruno Zerbib, Orange's Executive Vice President and Group Technology and Innovation Officer, discussed how AI is part of a telco industry trend of setting strategy based on customer demand. This marks a shift from the previous "build it and they will come" philosophy for strategic rollouts like 3G, 4G, and 5G.

AI was a prominent theme throughout the conference. Damien Leong, CTO of Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong, presented how their 3 Hong Kong consumer service uses AI to troubleshoot user experience problems, even when issues originate outside the telco network. For instance, if a user experiences poor video streaming, the AI can help identify the root cause, and 3 Hong Kong can then work with the streaming provider for a quick resolution.

Similar to Orange, Canada's Telus has built its own AI platform, called Fuel iX, to enhance employee productivity and create new revenue. Used by over 50,000 employees for tasks like coding, legal research, sales support, and network operations, Telus is now commercializing Fuel iX and developing sovereign AI infrastructure to foster Canadian innovation.