STL Partners has reported that generative AI (GenAI) deployments by telecom carriers have grown by 40 percent in the last three months.
According to a report from the telecom consultancy and research firm, 69 operators made 282 GenAI implementations between August and the start of November.
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STL Partners noted that for the last six months, the rise in GenAI implementations has grown fivefold.
"Telcos are quick on their feet when it comes to using GenAI in their operations and products, surprising some skeptics in the industry," said Marina Koytcheva, research director at STL Partners.
"Insights from the tracker show that 51 percent of all announcements are in full deployment, while eight percent are in trials and 41 percent are at a stage of exploration."
A number of carriers have touched on the potential of GenAI in the last 12 months, notably Verizon, which stated last month that Generative AI has the potential to provide a solid revenue stream in the future, but did note that it won't happen overnight.
Koytcheva said that 47 percent of the GenAI projects for telcos relate to "offering services such as chatbots and even infrastructure to business customers who don’t have the time, skills, or interest in cracking GenAI on their own."
Another key area of focus for telcos has been Large Language Models (LLM), plus the creation of multi-model platforms, noted STL. LLMs are machine learning models that can understand and generate human language text while analyzing massive data sets of language.
"Both point towards the desire to avoid lock-in with a single AI giant such as OpenAI or Google," added Koytcheva.
An example of carriers pushing LLMs is the Global Telecom AI Alliance (GTAA). In June, the GTAA announced a joint venture (JV) agreement to develop and launch an LLM for telcos.
In a joint statement at the time, the founding members, Deutsche Telekom, e& Group, Singtel, SoftBank Corp., and SK Telecom said the project aims to "help telcos improve their customer interactions via digital assists and other innovative AI solutions."
"Clearly, the industry has noticed telcos’ ambition to adopt GenAI quickly – and solution providers are now rushing to compete for telcos’ attention and partnership," said Koytcheva.
"The good news is that while the growth of GenAI adoption in the telecom industry is steep, these are still early days: we are yet to hear from hundreds more operators around the world about what they are doing with GenAI.’
