Appledore research
By John Abraham, Principal Analyst, Appledore research
GenAI is on the verge of upending the telecommunications industry, with promising early experiments yielding good results.
This paper examines Gen-AI’s evolution in BSS, exploring its impact on legacy telco systems and highlighting the significant opportunity for CSPs to reimagine software development and system transformation processes.
GenAI is on the verge of upending the telecommunications industry, with promising early experiments yielding good results. Most remarkable is the unprecedented speed at which this widely adopted technology is maturing and expanding its capabilities in the telco sector.
Many now believe AGI—once thought decades away—could arrive within this decade given today’s remarkable pace of development. This breakthrough will fundamentally transform business models and operational frameworks, creating unpredictable and far-reaching consequences.
Despite GenAI’s rapid advancement, telcos can’t expect positive results by simply implementing any large language model (LLM). An unfocused approach will likely fail and potentially create losses, considering GenAI’s significant computational expenses. CSPs need to prioritize the development of flexible infrastructure and systems that can readily accommodate the rapid evolution of AI technologies without requiring complete rebuilds.
This requires CSPs to first prioritize data quality, as GenAI’s effectiveness depends entirely on it. This is especially important for CSPs with legacy data silos, where data extraction can be highly complex and time-consuming. CSPs must secondly ensure comprehension of operational context, which varies significantly across industries and is uniquely distinct for telecoms with their proprietary standards and frameworks. This necessitates AI platforms that understand telecom-specific context and are tailored to their process frameworks, with additional support for testing telco-specific scenarios. Finally, CSPs need to prioritize alignment with industry standards to prevent redundant development efforts and ensure portability across different requirements.
By establishing flexible telco-specific GenAI platforms, detailed evaluation datasets, scalable computing resources, adaptable data pipelines, and flexible governance frameworks, telcos can ensure their investments remain relevant through multiple generations of AI advancement. This strategic approach allows CSPs to continually integrate new AI models and capabilities while adapting to emerging regulations, ultimately maximizing long-term returns and maintaining competitive advantage in an increasingly AI-driven industry.
This requires planning for a platform-centered framework to govern other systems. Placing an agnostic platform at the center will be crucial for futureproofing, rather than relying on multiple AI solutions with their own frameworks.
Purpose-built telecom solutions demonstrate deeper understanding of the industry’s unique operations, processes, and business models. These specialized platforms are inherently better positioned to address both current CSP requirements and emerging industry needs, ensuring long-term strategic value.
The traditional approach of replacing legacy stacks with new solutions is time and cost-intensive, often failing to deliver anticipated benefits. GenAI frameworks provide accelerated time to value through mediating layers that help remap old data silos.
Appledore research
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