Verizon executives have touted the potential for Generative AI to provide a solid revenue stream in the future, but cautioned that it won't happen overnight.

During an earnings call this week, the carrier stated that it plans to make money from the sale of computing infrastructure for AI operations.

Verizon previously announced in August that it's using AI to protect and prevent damage to its fiber infrastructure.

However, comments this week suggest the company is working on ways to monetize the technology.

"We're getting a lot of good orders from hyperscalers either on dark fiber or lit, and we're going to see that growing. But we have more than that, not just the fiber. It's the power, space, and cooling, which you know is in really high demand. And we have a lot of latent assets in that area," explained Verizon's Kyle Malady, head of the company's business division.

Malady didn't specify what generative AI use cases Verizon is exploring.

"We're going to measure twice and cut once," he said. "We're figuring out exactly how we're going to go into this market. It's a huge market. We can't cover it all, but there are certain segments we might be better off in than others."

The company's CEO Hans Vestberg spoke about AI during the earnings call, warning that it will take time.

"I think AI is definitely over a time frame. So how I think about AI, generative AI especially, in the beginning right now, we see large language models going to the big data centers," said Vestberg.

"As soon as they're going to be an application that you're going to use as an enterprise, you're going to put it much closer for the main reason of the transport cost for privacy, for security, and in some cases, also latency. But it's going to take some time from all these large language models to be real products and sitting in the Edge of the network."

Vestberg has previously been bullish around Edge computing opportunities, stating last month that the carrier is best placed to maximize the potential of Gen AI Edge computing.

"We have processing, compute, and storage power already built across the nation with our Mobile Edge Compute. So I think that no one in the telco world is better prepared than Verizon to be part of the sort of GenAI Edge compute of the time," he said last month.

Rival telco T-Mobile also revealed this week that it's using AI technology and billions of data points to identify how to upgrade and expand its network.

Verizon announced its Q3 earnings this week. The carrier posted total wireless service revenue of $19.8 billion, up 2.7 percent, while overall revenue remained flat at $33.3 billion.

Net income dropped to $3.4 billion from $4.9 billion, mainly due to a nearly $2billion severance charge the company booked as part of a voluntary separation program.

For the quarter, Verizon added 363,000 FWA customers, taking its total number to close to 4.2 million.