Turkcell has identified AI as one of its four strategic focus areas
Turkish operator Turkcell is actively investing in the artificial intelligence (AI) field in order to keep up with the rapid development of this technology, the operator’s CEO Ali Taha Koç, told RCR Wireless News.
“One of the technological developments that triggered this major change is artificial intelligence, which completely alters the way business is done in every industry. We anticipated this paradigm shift long ago and started making the necessary investments to keep up with this global change,” the executive said.
Koç also noted that Turkcell established its “Artificial Intelligence Principles” in 2020, adding that the carrier also identified AI as one of its four strategic focus areas.
“In this context, it is of great importance to prioritize innovation and societal benefit while integrating artificial intelligence solutions effectively across all areas of our company operations, ensuring the ethical use of AI. We deploy artificial intelligence in many areas, such as providing the best offers to our customers, predicting network outages or saving energy,” added Koç.
Commenting on concrete areas where Turkcell is already implementing AI, the executive said that the telco has developed analytical models and produce valuable solutions with GPU-based infrastructures.
“Thanks to the ‘Base Station Service Interruption Prediction’ system developed by Turkcell engineers, for example, hundreds of millions of alarms from networks are interpreted with the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence algorithms. Thus, we are able to predict potential network issues and prevent failures before network interruptions occur,” said Koç.
Also, the Turkish operator has its natural language processing solutions, through which the telco is able to vocalize any given text very close to the human voice. “We are currently converting package information on IVR into voice and presenting it to our customers in this way,” he said.
“Our natural language processing solutions provide many benefits for services such as image processing, voice processing, machine learning methods, fraud detection in identity documents and digital verification. In addition, we have a virtual assistant that we developed entirely using internal resources, and that is integrated into all our channels where we come into contact with customers,” the executive added.
He went on to say that Turkcell continues its efforts to integrate artificial intelligence solutions into devices that will work in vehicles and develop special artificial intelligence models for them.
“Looking ahead in the field of artificial intelligence, we aim to deepen our R&D studies on developing big language models and integrating productive artificial intelligence in value-added areas,” he added.
Turkcell also strengthens its communication network infrastructure with artificial intelligence technologies. The operator uses artificial intelligence-based applications developed by its engineers for base station planning. “We also manage customer complaints and prepare the geographical planning of fiber investments with artificial intelligence. These technologies used in network planning processes contribute to the operational and financial efficiency of our company.
For example, GEDI, which incorporates artificial intelligence into Turkcell’s business processes and facilitates the analysis of spatial data, is an application that we have patented. With the strength derived from GEDI, we are determined to prepare our fiber investments for the future. Thanks to the GEDI application, which enables data-based, objective, and realistic analysis, we have achieved more than 5.8 million home passes in the country,” said Koç.
Turkcell aims to launch 5G Advanced services in 2026.
