Agentic AI, sustainability mandates, edge-native infrastructure, and AI-augmented workforces are reshaping how operators run networks and serve customers, says enterprise software company IFS.
In recent years, the industry has undergone significant changes, whether in network services, infrastructure, or regulations. 2026 is set to be another critical year for the telecoms industry and for Markus Persson, Global Industry Director, Telecom, IFS, four key areas will fuel the industry’s development. From AI and Agentic systems transforming business operations and sustainability imperatives, to the rise of edge-native infrastructure, and investment in human-machine collaboration transforms the workforce.
- The rise of the autonomous assistant, agentic AI
The AI era in telecoms is evolving from simple copilots that answer customer questions to agentic systems that take autonomous actions. The introduction of agentic systems represents the transition from generative models capable of creating content to smarter, goal-oriented models.
By integrating memory, industry-specialized agentic AI systems can execute complex tasks such as troubleshooting and workforce scheduling within governed boundaries and in collaboration with the workforce and other agents.
This transition to integrated intelligence is not slowing down, with IDC projecting global spending on AI-supporting technology to reach $337 in 2025 and increase to $749 by 2028—67% of investment will be spent integrating AI capabilities into core business operations. This is a significant step towards disassembling silos within telecom organizations, as integrated AI can close operations loops across traditionally siloed areas such as Operations Support Systems (OOS), Business Support Systems (BSS), networks, and customer channels.
Many operators are already deploying autonomous assistants that orchestrate multiple agents. These systems act on fraud alerts, coordinate customer care offers, and automate software engineering tasks. Take Telefónica’s Aura, for example, which can handle over 400 million interactions annually across 30+ channels, now augmented with generative capabilities for real-time, personalized replies.
Key architectural choices for successful AI adoption in 2026 include:
- Persistent memory with policy controls
- Tool catalogues for system capabilities
- Grounding and evaluation against authoritative data
- Closed-loop operations with human-in-the-loop oversight
There are certain areas that telecom organizations should focus their AI integration on, such as assurance and energy optimization, field service augmentation, customer operations, and accelerated software development.
Through focusing on these areas, telecom organizations will see a measurable financial impact and can be made safe with constrained actuators. Measuring success requires establishing baselines and publishing daily “agent scorecards” across network, care, field, and engineering domains.
2. The rise of sustainability in telecoms—energy usage a top priority
This year, the telecom industry is repositioning its stance on sustainability. What was once just a mere reporting requirement is now becoming the backbone of telecom operations. Across Europe, operators have already decarbonized Scope 1 and 2 emissions—now the focus is on Scope 3, which are mainly embedded in purchased equipment and the use-phase of sold products. But with standards being set by industry bodies including GSMA, ITU, and GeSI, telecom organizations can better manage and measure their emissions.
Commercially, energy is a top operating expense. Reducing kWh per GB by double digits while maintaining user experience can save tens of millions annually for midsize networks and is essential for supporting AI workloads at the edge and in the (Radio Access Network) RAN. Credible Scope 3 plans are increasingly required for enterprise sales, public procurement, and financing.
Evidence from Vodafone UK and Ericsson shows up to 33% daily power reduction at selected 5G sites in London by combining AI/ML applications like 5G Deep Sleep and power-efficiency heatmaps. Radios enter ultra-low energy hibernation during low traffic, with savings up to 70% during off-peak hours and no user-experience degradation.
As the telecoms industry moves forward on its sustainability journey and looks to target reducing Scope 3 emissions, organizations need to build a decarbonization stack that includes:
- Measurement using industry methodologies
- Optimization via AI control planes
- Electrification and renewables
- Circularity through refurbish-and-reuse programs
- Governance tying incentives to CO2e reductions
The AI energy paradox, where increased inference demand can raise energy consumption, is resolved by placing inference at the edge, using small models for known tasks, batching non-urgent inference, and measuring energy per action alongside business KPIs.
3. The art of change management—strike the right balance between human and machine
AI-ready workforce evolution in telecom is less about headcount cuts and more about redesigning work at scale. MIT research suggests AI will augment rather than replace most occupations, with impact arriving through task reallocation and new complements.
Leaders should invest in complementarity—pairing people with systems that elevate decision quality and execution speed—and in institutions that convert productivity into broad-based opportunity. Some operators are already enabling scale transformation through internal GenAI programs, co-authored usage guidance, and skills development for tens of thousands of employees.
Workforce transformation must be a co-production between HR and tech, embedded in policies, learning, and day-to-day tools. It involves change.
Change management starts with equipping managers to coach AI-augmented work, creating fusion teams, and codifying “AI Ways of Working” handbooks. Trust and safety are paramount, requiring standardised guardrails, human review for high-risk actions, transparent logs, and privacy-by-design.
A key aspect of change management is tracking employees’ feedback and KPIs, especially when looking at heavily influential tools such as AI. This could include tracking AI literacy, Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) augmentation, time-to-productivity, throughput, and pairing productivity with quality and safety signals. Leadership incentives should be tied to capability building and safe adoption milestones.
4. Digital infrastructure must ‘edge’ closer to the customer for low-latency and reliable services
Digital infrastructure moves to an edge-native and AI-infused footing. GSMA Intelligence projects 5.5 billion 5G connections by 2030, with enterprise IoT connections forecast to reach 38.5 billion. As a result, the telecoms industry will see three tectonic shifts in 2026, 5G will become a fully independent network architecture to unlock slicing and low-latency control loops, open Radio Access Network (RAN) at an industrial scale for modularity and vendor diversity, and cloud and edge computing will converge to optimize latency, privacy, and cost.
Some operators have already turned to partnering with hyperscalers to deploy private 5G and edge compute, to allow for industrial use cases of predictive maintenance and worker safety. Hyperscalers such as Microsoft and Google are both accelerating AI adoption for telecom organizations with their Azure for Operators and Cloud DNA platforms offering specialized cloud-native solutions that can consolidate data planes and modernize real-time processing.
So service innovation roadmaps will include differentiated connectivity, AI at the edge, autonomous operations, and developer ecosystems. Engineering priorities must focus on Standalone (SA) upgrades, mid-band expansion, Open RAN integration, and edge platform development.
The KPIs to track in 2026 include build velocity, performance percentiles, commercial revenue mix, reliability, and efficiency metrics.
Opportunities for telecoms in 2026
Telecom success in 2026 hinges on four key developments: agentic AI, sustainability imperatives, edge computing and the modernization of workforces. These will be more than just technical and operational upgrades for forward-thinking organizations. It’s an opportunity to innovate and commit to a better service for their customers, and secure sustainable long-term growth throughout 2026 and into the future.
