Telecoms must re-invent itself — and agentic AI holds the key

Agentic AI is the key to reinvention, reinvigoration, and winning the next decade

The industry business model is dying. Rows of cubicles, millions of square feet of office space being rented, turnover rates, costs of recruitment, dissatisfied customers, inefficient processes, and the constant race of chasing your proverbial tails due to security threats. Telecoms must embrace the latest technological evolution of agentic artificial intelligence (agentic AI) immediately or risk falling behind and becoming irrelevant compared to their competition.

Every call that comes into a call center that is handled by a human will cost, on average, between $5 and $12 per call. Agentic AI can take that number and drive it to almost zero.

Every network outage causes a domino effect of lost revenue, lost customers, and security threats. Agentic AI works non-stop to predict, prevent, and resolve all of these challenges before they have any impact.

Agentic AI is the key to reinvention, reinvigoration, and winning the next decade. But you must start now.

Proactive network management

The issue historically with equipment failures is that they happen, they cause systemic issues, then you have to react, get them fixed, and then correct all of the downstream issues that occurred as a result. Agentic AI can predict potential equipment failures before they happen, and alert the team to act before anything goes wrong.

The potential financial impact here is astounding. Some 84% of CIOs and CSOs stated that outages have increased in the last two years and 35% report annual related costs between $1 and $5 million. Deploying agentic AI will save these unexpected and potentially dangerous outages from ever occurring, in turn showing near immediate ROI.

Agentic AI also has the capability of constant network monitoring to analyze traffic patterns and trends to then automatically reroute data or adjust bandwidth to turn normally high-demand periods that drag down performance into business as usual. When you consider that people on average use more than 20 GB of data per month, optimization is key to operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

As the telecom industry continues to grow from its $1.14 trillion value, the threats to security rise as well. Leveraging agentic AI to enhance security ensures data and customers remain safe from this rise in cyber attacks. Agentic AI has the ability to monitor for threats continuously, it then adapts internal security protocols based on threats that are identified, and even immediately isolates and takes offline any devices that become compromised.

Enhanced customer service

Poor customer service will cost you a client faster than anything. Surveys show that 87% of customers will abandon a brand after just one negative customer service experience. Basically, you get one chance to get the interaction correct, and resolved immediately.Agentic AI will deliver faster resolution on a continual basis. It handles customer queries such as billing inquiries or service setups independently, providing instant, 24/7 support without human intervention.

Personalization in individual interactions keeps clients happy and helps ensure they are repeat customers. Around 63% of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and tailor their interaction to their consumer history. With access to customer data, agents can offer tailored solutions and a more personalized customer experience. If your company resolves issues quickly and provides personalized support the affinity for your company increases with each client interaction.

Operational efficiency improvement

Automation and scalability is the duet of capabilities that will drive immediate and sustainable return on your agentic investment. Automation of repetitive tasks drives down operational costs per interaction while simultaneously eliminating nearly all need for human intervention. This grows margins and increases profits.

Additionally, agentic AI scales automatically and exponentially based on need. This provides you with optimal performance during peak times and cost efficiency during off-peak times. Imagine never again having to connect with your workforce management department because of a sudden spike or lull, scrambling to call people in or looking for volunteers to leave early.

Immediate reinvention

The telecoms industry must reinvent itself and it must start now. Customers will continue to expect more and more at increased speed and personalization, security threats will continue to rise, and demand for service and data will only increase. Agentic AI is the key to solving these demands and being able to scale operations as needed instantaneously.

To reject the use of AI at this point would be akin to rejecting the use of the internet in the 90s, or the phone in the early 1900s. Your clients will not wait for you to be ready. You must get ready, and you must start now.