How AI Will Shape Telecom CX in 2024: 5 Key Trends
By : Pravin Vijay
Vice President-Marketing
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the telecommunications industry. From network optimization and security to customer analytics and virtual assistance, AI applications are enabling telecom operators to improve their efficiency, performance, and profitability.
AI adoption will be a defining factor for telcos over the next five years. The global AI in telecommunication market size was valued at USD 1.45 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.2% from 2023 to 2030.
According to a 2023 survey titled ‘State of AI in Telecommunications’ conducted by Nvidia, telecom companies see efficiencies driven by AI as the most likely path for returns on investment. The survey also revealed that 73% of respondents reported that the implementation of AI had led to increased revenue in the preceding year and also better customer retention and loyalty.
1. Effortless CX Actions with Generative AI
Generative AI shows promise in automating resource-intensive and time-consuming tasks for CX teams. Its applications range from generating promotional content tailored to the target audience and engagement channels, to refining messages, visuals, and offers to align with audience personas and business contexts
Moreover, Generative AI can assist product managers in designing high-performing digital products through automated price optimization, benefit tuning, and rapid experimentation.
Additionally, Gen AI can facilitate the creation of personalized customer experience programs to achieve marketing objectives, such as crafting tailored customer journeys, or designing omni-channel campaigns, or implementing loyalty programs.
Furthermore, Gen AI can also aid care teams by generating appropriate steps to resolve specific customer issues or agent queries, and establishing escalation criteria.
2. 5G + AI: An Opportunity in the Making
With the advent of 5G, the telecommunications industry stands on the brink of a new era in connectivity and communication. Leveraging 5G to amplify the impact of AI initiatives, companies can transform their positioning from Telcos to Techcos.
5G has the potential to enable telecom operators to expand their offerings beyond traditional connectivity services and delve into developing advanced technology solutions across diverse sectors like entertainment, gaming, health, and education. When paired with AI, 5G can unlock innovative use cases . For instance, smart homes can be elevated to new levels of intelligence. AI-driven virtual assistants can assist homeowners in efficiently managing household tasks such as temperature control, optimizing power usage and so on.
Moreover, 5G has the potential to elevate augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications, which rely on swift connectivity and minimal latency. By integrating AI with 5G, AR and VR experiences can be enriched with personalized content and recommendations tailored to individual user preferences, thereby enhancing engagement and experience.
In addition to consumer-centric applications, AI/ML can optimize the performance and efficiency of 5G networks themselves. For instance, AI algorithms can automatically detect breaches in network service level agreements (SLAs) and generate remediation or upgrade plans in real-time, ensuring smoother and more reliable network experiences.
3. The Era of Hyper-Personalisation
The era of hyper-personalization propelled by AI represents a groundbreaking shift in how businesses engage with their customers. With the proliferation of data and advancements in AI technologies, companies can now tailor experiences to individual users with unprecedented precision.
AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of real-time data, including user behavior, preferences, and contextual information, to deliver highly personalized content, recommendations, and services. From dynamically adapting website layouts and discerning diverse user personas to crafting personalized product suggestions and individualized omni-channel journeys, AI-powered hyper-personalization empowers businesses to create consistent experiences that feel uniquely relevant and valuable to each user.
Even self-care portals equipped with AI capabilities have the potential to enhance user engagement, satisfaction, and overall well-being. They can facilitate providing personalized offers or content, or guiding users on app or portal features to improve digital channel adoption and usage, AI empowered self-care portals can also help in having meaningful conversations with customers. Furthermore, AI can leverage real-time data to adapt and refine its offerings over time, ensuring that the hyper-personalized experience evolves in tandem with the user’s changing needs and circumstances
As AI gets widely adopted, businesses are gearing up for hyper-personalization, which means tailoring things very specifically to each customer. This is going to change how businesses talk to their customers, making things more personalized and focused on what each person wants
4. From Ground to Cloud: The Behind-the-Scenes Improvements
For less data-sensitive use cases, 2024 will likely be the year most telecom companies prioritise cloud-based solutions. With the pace at which AI solutions are developing, companies will need to be nimble in their deployments and have the ability to scale resources up or down. Cloud-native AI solutions are the perfect solution to help telcos achieve this requirement.
Telcos are also uniquely positioned to leverage edge computing in conjunction with AI in 2024. Edge computing helps telcos balance the reliance of AI models on cloud access with the privacy standards stipulated by regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Telecom companies can also reduce latency and improve application response times by processing data locally at the network edge, instead of sending it back and forth to the core network or the cloud. AI can also efficiently allocate network resources across multiple edge sites, greatly increasing network availability and resiliency in case of an outage.
Despite the improved security and network resilience offered by edge computing, outages remain a possibility for which telcos need to account. Cloud-based AI analytics and monitoring solutions can help telecom companies monitor, diagnose, and resolve network issues in real-time.
5. The Question of Trust and Security
One key concern that customers have about AI applications in telecom is how their personal data is collected, processed, and used. Regulations like GDPR also have strict guidelines on what companies can and cannot do with customer data. It is important for telecom companies to adopt responsible and explainable AI practices that ensure transparency, accountability, and fairness in their AI systems.
Responsible AI means that telecom companies follow ethical principles and legal regulations when developing and deploying AI solutions. They also need to monitor and audit their AI systems regularly to identify and mitigate any potential risks or biases. AI solutions that use Explainable AI (XAI) can provide clear reasons for how their AI systems make decisions or recommendations. This will be a key component in proving decisions are made in the best interests of the customer and other stakeholders.
2024 is the Year to Adopt AI
AI is a powerful technology that can help telcos transform their CX in 2024 and beyond. Telcos that use AI-powered solutions can offer new and innovative services, improve customer service, optimize network management, create hyper-personalised experiences, and benefit customer privacy positively. Careful and considered AI implementation is a high-impact and future-proof solution for improved customer experience. Besides being a customer-centric move, it also brings benefits to the business in the form of improved efficiency and cost savings.
Telcos that adopt AI early and partner with experienced and innovative partners with cloud-based AI solutions stand to gain a competitive edge in 2024.
