Respondents to Telecoms.com’s Annual Industry Survey 2024 indicate a shift taking place from an AI curiosity position towards integration, while many pick AI, automation, and machine learning as their priority investment area.
The survey report, with data collected from a host of participants including Communication Service Providers (CSPs), vendors, and system integrators, investigates the telecom business performance in 2024 and the outlook of 2025 to uncover what's hot and what's not in the industry.
Survey respondents identified AI, automation, and machine learning as their top priority investment area in 2025. Drilling down into the data and disaggregating it by company type, the report also shows that more than one in three CSPs are already implementing and using AI solutions in some areas, while about three in ten of all respondents report implementing and using AI solutions.
While there is still more integration to be done before the industry can claim it has fully embraced AI, this finding indicates the beginning of a shift away from curiosity (e.g. proof of concepts and pilot projects) and towards AI integration, particularly by CSPs. This shift is likely to intensify over the next five years and with the introduction of 6G which some argue will be an AI-native network.
