How mobile phone networks are adopting AI

Our mobile phones are getting smarter, but what about the telecommunications networks they run on?

It's called Apple Intelligence, and it will also be incorporated into the phone's Siri chatbot, with the aim of making them easier and faster to use. And making Siri an even more personal assistant.

It follows Samsung's Galaxy AI and Google's Gemini AI for Pixel handsets.

The growing use of AI means phones will be doing a lot more computing, and that means they will produce and use a lot more data. This is going to put more pressure on mobile phone networks, such as O2, EE, Vodafone and Three in the UK.

To help cope, such telecoms companies are also increasingly turning to AI, says Ian Fogg, network innovation director at research consultancy CCS Insight.

“Network operators are using AI to dynamically manage radio frequencies, providing an optimal level of service. And to manage cell towers, for example, so that they use less energy at times of low demand.”

The growing use of AI to maintain mobile phone networks has now grown enormously globally. In South Korea, Korea Telecom is now able to localise and fix faults within a minute thanks to AI-enabled network monitoring, says Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer at GSMA, the body representing global mobile operators.

Meanwhile, AT&T in the US is using predictive, AI algorithms based on trillions of prior network alerts to warn it when things are about to go wrong.

Other operators, such as Vodafone, are using AI digital twins – virtual digital replicas of real-world equipment, such as masts and antennas – to continuously monitor the performance of their networks.

And AI is even being used to manage how massive data centers use energy to keep their servers cool and optimize storage capacity.

The explosion in data generated by the growing use of AI is another reason why telecoms companies around the world are continuing to invest in so-called 5G standalone mobile networks. These use new, dedicated 5G infrastructure rather than relying partly on upgrading older, less efficient 4G systems.

5G standalone offers much higher speeds and capacity. But some experts believe even this high-spec technology won't be enough to meet the demands of the AI ​​age.

For example, at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​some experts argued that AI won’t reach its full potential until the arrival of 6G in 2028.

While mobile consumers tend to pay attention to networks only when things go wrong, they become more vigilant when customer service levels are poor, and this can damage the reputation of brands.

Therefore, the industry also hopes that AI can bring vast improvements in the way they interact with and serve their customers.

For example, the Global Telco AI Alliance – a joint venture company made up of Deutsche Telekom, E&R, Singtel, SoftBank and SK Telecom, with 1.3 billion customers across 50 countries – aims to develop an AI chatbot specifically for the telecoms sector and tailored to the types of questions customers ask.

Alliance's founders hope that this specially trained chatbot will be able to deal with most of the basic questions coming from customers, freeing up call center staff to focus on more complex matters.

Meanwhile, Vodafone has partnered with Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service to improve its customer service, led by its digital assistant Toby, which interacts with more than 40 million customers per month in 15 languages ​​across 13 countries.

The more Tobii can answer customer queries without the need for human intervention, the fewer complaints there are likely to be, which is good for profits and corporate reputation.

“We see AI primarily as a 'virtual assistant' for humans,” says Scott Petty, Vodafone's chief technology officer. “We're already seeing AI freeing up Vodafone employees' time from tedious, repetitive manual work, allowing them to focus on more creative activities that are beneficial to our customers and the environment.”

They argue that AI makes customer agents more free to work on more complex cases. Vodafone also says that Azure OpenAI is helping customers find what they are looking for on its website more easily, with early evidence showing a doubling of the number of successful online customer journeys, and a 10% reduction in follow-up calls.

While many commentators worry that AI could lead to massive job losses in the telecoms sector, as even menial tasks are increasingly automated through software, the GSMA’s Mr Sinclair believes it could actually be empowering, particularly for lower-income countries.

He argues that “AI will give emerging markets a specialist tool that will help them grow.” “We are in favor of trying to democratize AI so that it's not just used by the wealthy.”

He believes that some of the negative talk about AI has been exaggerated, and so he adopts a more optimistic tone.

Ian Fogg of CCS Insight shares a similar view: “AI has been around for some years, used for specific purposes.” [telecoms] But it's now being applied to so many more areas – networks, devices, software – that almost every device we use now has the potential to become even better.

“AI has the potential to make networks greener and the world a more efficient place.”