The telecommunications industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors and one that leverages AI and machine learning in diverse aspects of their business. From improving the customer experience and predictive maintenance to advancing network reliability, many largest telecoms around the world rely on artificial intelligence in a number of ways. And for many telecom giants, shoring up market share in today’s competitive business landscape with future-proofing operations requires to invest in AI.

Considering reports, the telecom industry will invest US$36.7 billion annually in AI software, hardware and services by 2025. Today, communications service providers (CSPs) face growing demands for higher quality services and better customer experience. They are taking advantages of these opportunities by making use of the massive amounts of data gleaned over the years from their vast customer bases. This data is gathered from devices, networks, mobile applications, customer profiles, service usage, billing data, among others.

Meanwhile, 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT) and digital transformation are initiatives that CSPs hope will drive top-line growth. While CSPs chase these, they are under equal pressure to find out ways to become more efficient and lower costs as a mean to improve profitability.

AI Delivers Value for Telecoms

Telecommunication companies now are harnessing the power of AI to process and assess vast volumes of big data to take out actionable insights. This will provide them to deliver better customer experience, advance operations, and surge revenue through new products and services.

Artificial intelligence is significant for assisting CSPs to develop self-optimizing networks that provide operators the ability to automatically optimize network quality based on traffic information by region and time zone. Its applications in telecommunications leverage advanced algorithms to find patterns within the data, allowing telecom companies to both spot and envisage network anomalies. It also enables them to proactively fix issues before customers are negatively impacted.

AI for Predictive Maintenance and Network Optimization

AI-powered predictive analytics can be helpful for telcos in providing better services by using data, sophisticated algorithms and machine learning methods to foresee future outcomes based on historical data. Data-driven insights assist companies to monitor equipment, learn from past information, predict equipment failure, and proactively fix it.

Artificial intelligence also assists in network optimization. A Self Organizing Network (SON) driven by AI can help networks to continually adapt and reconfigure based on current needs. It will also be valuable when designing new networks. For insatnce, an innovative solution by AT&T is making use of AI to support its maintenance procedures. The company is experimenting with a drone to expand its LTE network coverage and utilize the analysis of video data captured by drones for tech support and maintenance of its cell towers.

AI can also support telecommunication companies in creating alerts and advice subscribers to the best plan. It will be essential for developing personalized and adaptive customer journeys. By leveraging AI and data analytics, telecom providers will also be able to recognize and push various services to the customers at the right time. For instance, in case of post-paid customers, operators must reassure high speed data services and offer tailored data packs when subscriber is running low on data.

Future of AI in the Telecom Industry

Network applications enabled by AI such as precision algorithms can provide intelligent network optimization and operation solution, and intelligent network operation and maintenance. Its applications in the industry are increasingly assisting CSPs to manage, optimize and maintain not only infrastructure, but also customer support operations.

Since telecoms possess vast amounts of data from customers, they can derive actionable insights from the data to make faster and better business decisions by using artificial intelligence. According to an analysis from Tractica, telecom AI software revenue is expected to reach from US$419.0 million in 2018 to over US$11.2 billion by 2025.