AI offers operators powerful tools to enhance their business by delivering cost savings, creating new revenue streams, and improving non-financial outcomes like customer satisfaction. While much AI deployment has focused on the network, improving customer experience is equally crucial as it directly impacts market performance, GSMA Intelligence said in a report.
Cost savings is important for telecom operators. For instance, AT&T recently said its operating expenses (Opex) increased to $24.9 billion in Q1 2025 from $24.2 billion in Q1 2024. Opex of AT&T rose primarily due to higher equipment costs associated with higher wireless equipment revenues and higher restructuring costs.
GSMA says the real benefits from the deployment of AI tools depend on how AI is applied, with pattern recognition through genAI analytics helping operators understand customer behavior and predictively improve services, billing, or product strategies. As operators consider AI solutions, examining real-world examples and their proven value is essential.
Amdocs CXI is an AI-based solution that provides operators with continuous analytics to understand customer usage patterns, predict inbound contact centre calls, and suggest remedies or upsell opportunities. It focuses on key aspects of customer experience — product usage, sales and care interactions, billing behavior, and network quality.
CXI includes a “pulse check” feature that lets operators quickly assess customer experience trends before full deployment. Powered by AI and pattern recognition from large datasets, CXI helps operators segment and analyze customer interactions, offering actionable insights. It enables customer service teams to proactively address issues like billing concerns or unexpected charges, improving satisfaction through personalized recommendations displayed on a dashboard.
Focusing on customer experience delivers significant cost benefits for operators, particularly by reducing contract churn, which remains around 12 percent annually in the UK and US. For instance, AT&T’s postpaid churn was 0.99 percent, while prepaid churn was 2.64 percent during the first-quarter of 2025. Managing churn, avoiding tariff downgrades, and minimizing high call-centre volumes are crucial for maintaining commercial advantage.
Operators that leverage AI to understand customer behavior, predict churn risks, and identify upsell opportunities position themselves more competitively. According to GSMA Intelligence, nearly 50 percent of operators prioritize improving customer experience with AI, ahead of generating new revenue or achieving network efficiencies.
Companies like Vodafone UK, Swisscom, and Deutsche Telekom are already using AI and natural language processing to enhance customer care and service outcomes.
Deutsche Telekom has recently signed an agreement with Google Cloud, extending through 2030. The partnership focuses on integrating cloud and AI technologies across Deutsche Telekom’s IT systems, networks, and business applications, including the migration of SAP.
By selecting Google Cloud as its preferred partner for cloudification, Deutsche Telekom aims to boost operational efficiency, enhance customer experiences, and drive innovation in the telecom sector as part of its digital transformation strategy, Stefan Schloter, CIO Europe at Deutsche Telekom, said.
Swisscom has introduced the Swiss AI Platform, providing companies with a secure and powerful infrastructure for trusted AI applications. Operated entirely within Swisscom’s Swiss data centers, the platform ensures local data storage and processing. It offers end-to-end services — from consulting to operations — and flexible, modular access to Switzerland’s first NVIDIA SuperPOD system, along with platform and application services. Swisscom is already collaborating with customers to test initial applications on the platform.
Operators should use network upgrades, such as the evolution to 5G-Advanced or 5G standalone, as opportunities to prioritize customer experience by integrating new capabilities that deliver premium and differentiated services. As they invest in operations and billing systems, experience visibility must be included in their solution buying criteria to ensure they can understand and optimize end-user satisfaction. Additionally, with the expanded use of AI, particularly genAI, security must be a core consideration. Operators must ensure that AI systems handling sensitive user data are secure, incorporating strict security requirements into their AI solution evaluations.
Optimizing customer experience is crucial for reducing churn, especially in saturated mobile markets, and for supporting the successful launch of new services that drive revenue growth. Operators must also extend their focus to the enterprise sector, where high-performance requirements make user experience critical for maintaining and expanding B2B revenues. To effectively implement holistic customer experience strategies, operators need to overcome internal silos by ensuring strong C-suite leadership, fostering collaboration across product, sales, billing, and network teams to achieve clear, unified goals.
Baburajan Kizhakedath