Strategic AI adoption: Three key opportunities for telecom innovation

Manish Singh, chief technology officer, telecom systems business, Dell Technologies

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the telecommunications industry, creating new opportunities for communications service providers (CSPs) to innovate and compete. As networks grow more complex and customer expectations evolve, telecoms are turning to AI solutions across three critical domains: sovereign AI deployment, enhanced customer experience and automated network operations. They are strategically implementing AI to drive value, starting with these high-impact use cases that deliver measurable results.

Localizing AI: CSPs are at the forefront of sovereign solutions

Growing adoption of generative AI (GenAI) has led to the development of sovereign AI – the local or national development and deployment of AI technologies. Sovereign AI systems are developed with a deep understanding of local contexts, including cultural nuances and languages. This localized approach improves upon generic models, which often fall short in addressing specific needs and preferences. CSPs, with their strong local presence and direct customer relationships, are ideally positioned to lead in this domain.

By leveraging their deep understanding of regional contexts, service providers can develop AI models that deliver highly personalized and culturally relevant experiences. This localized AI approach enhances customer engagement by enabling more meaningful and natural interactions through conversational AI, unlocking new revenue growth opportunities and improving overall customer satisfaction.

Enhancing customer experience: CSPs integrate GenAI with personal assistants

Generative AI (GenAI)-powered personal assistants serve as a compelling use case for how CSPs can improve the customer experience. Fine-tuned large language models (LLMs) for telecommunications are trained on extensive customer data, offering domain expertise that enables CSPs to deploy accurate and efficient assistants.

Dell Technologies, in collaboration with SK Telecom, developed an AI-powered telecommunications chat agent that delivers 24/7 contextual assistance that surpasses traditional chatbots, enabling personalized support and revenue growth through expert services like data plan consulting.

By integrating the information collected by the agent with backend business support systems (BSS), network operators can predict churn, gauge satisfaction, and automatically implement changes while offering tailored plans or upgrades. Successful AI implementation in telecommunications hinges on effective BSS integration, requiring compatibility, seamless data flow and robust security.

Developing autonomous networks: CSPs transform network performance

AI-powered approaches are also proving highly effective in laying the foundation for autonomous networks, which can significantly enhance reliability and operational efficiency and reduce total cost of ownership. Key opportunities for AI-enabled networks include:

• Anomaly detection: monitors networks for unusual patterns and behaviors in real time
• Predictive fault detection: uses AI to forecast potential network issues and enable proactive maintenance
• AI-assisted troubleshooting: analyzes large network datasets to identify and predict potential failures
• Closed-loop automation: autonomously detects, diagnoses and resolves network issues with minimal human intervention
• “Dark NOC” operations: performs AI-driven alarm correlation, root cause analysis and automated remediation in the network operations center

Dell Technologies and Kinetica have collaborated to develop Network Engineer CoPilot, a solution that significantly enhances troubleshooting within complex 5G core and RAN environments. This advanced solution uses retrieval augmented generation (RAG) architecture to address the challenges presented by the massive data generated by networks, enabling network engineers to rapidly identify the root causes of failures. By seamlessly integrating, processing and visualizing network data, the CoPilot empowers faster analysis and more informed decision-making, ultimately streamlining network operations and accelerating issue resolution.

Building the future of telecom: CSPs take a holistic approach

Telecom companies must prioritize a foundational approach to AI implementation, focusing on key areas like customer engagement, productivity and cost reduction. With a holistic approach that includes a strong AI architecture, data readiness and a secure infrastructure, operators can unlock the full potential of AI.

Dell aims to transform network operations and help CSPs capitalize on AI opportunities with a combination of Dell’s AI expertise, infrastructure and services and ecosystem partner solutions. We do this via Dell AI for Telecom, a pioneering initiative that streamlines and accelerates AI deployments.

Central to the Dell AI for Telecom initiative is the Dell AI Factory, a comprehensive, open ecosystem that facilitates the creation and validation of advanced telecom AI solutions built on Dell PowerEdge servers and high-performance computing chips from NVIDIA, Intel or AMD.

Dell AI for Telecom leverages the Dell AI Factory and telecom-specific partners to address industry challenges with on-premises AI solutions that enhance network performance, improve customer service and create value at the enterprise edge.

To successfully leverage AI, service providers should start now, focusing on developing a solid foundation for scalable implementation. By embracing a holistic approach to AI implementation, CSPs can significantly enhance their network performance and gain a competitive edge in the evolving telecommunications landscape.