Industry associations the GSMA and TM Forum agreed a collaboration to aid adoption of practical AI systems across a range of use cases within the telecoms industry.

In a joint statement, GSMA director of AI initiatives Louis Powell and TM Forum EVP products and services Andy Tiller explained the organisations would work together to help create open AI models and frameworks able to meet the industry’s very specific needs.

“Networks underpin the cloud, device and edge capabilities on which AI depends,” the two argued.

“Yet telcos themselves have not fully captured the value of AI within their own operations”. 

“If the industry is to accelerate towards more autonomous, AI-native networks, it must align on shared assets, common standards and practical implementation pathways”.

The organisations address complementary areas towards the common goal. The GSMA is working on relevant models and agentic systems through the Open Telco AI initiative and TM Forum is focusing on frameworks and standards to align the industry and ensure interoperability.

They labelled the collaboration as being “about connecting the AI stack end-to-end, combining shared models, common frameworks and practical deployment pathways, with the trust required for critical network environments”.

Problem
Explaining the rationale for the closer ties between the organisations, Powell and Tiller argued adoption of AI is more complex in telecoms than other industries, but is a board-level priority in many organisations.

Among the difficulties cited is the multi-vendor nature of network architecture, with fragmented, siloed data and “very little tolerance for error”.

They also noted frontier AI models are not designed for operators and have not been trained on industry-specific data, leaving deployments limited to areas outside of the network layer such as customer experience.

Data published by GSMA Intelligence noted 16% of AI deployments target network use cases, despite networks accounting for 34% of opex.

The organisations believe the telecoms industry needs to “align to solve these challenges for itself, building AI approaches that reflect the complexity, economics and operational realities of the industry”.

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Support for so-called physical AI including automated vehicles, robot dogs, drones and semi-humanoid units was one of the main market drivers SNS Telecom & IT cited in a forecast annual private 5G spending would top $6.6 billion by 2030.

In its Private 5G Market: 2026-2030 report, the company predicted investments in the networks would grow at a CAGR of 34% over the period.

It expects a substantial proportion of this spending to be on highly localised networks for physical AI, automation and workforce connectivity across enterprise campuses and industrial facilities.

SNS Telecom & IT also pointed to continued adoption of 5G architecture for mission-critical uses by defence agencies, public safety organisations, railway companies and utility providers.  

In a statement on the top-line findings of the research, SNS Telecom & IT noted 5G could “address far more demanding performance requirements” than previous generations of mobile technology and is being positioned “as a viable alternative to physically wired connections for industrial-grade communications between machines, robots and control systems”.

The analyst house previously predicted annual private 5G investment would reach $5 billion by the end of 2028.

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UK operator Virgin Media O2 announced plans to begin its 2G network switch-off in Summer 2029, joining rivals BT and VodafoneThree in setting a date to wind down the legacy technology.

Its timeline is similar to that of the country’s other operators, with BT expecting to begin deactivating 2G in May 2029 and VodafoneThree set to turn off its last sites in Spring 2030.

All three operators have signed a voluntary government charter for retirement of the technology. Commitments in that document include undertaking a gradual process starting in trial areas, thorough testing, and work to aid migration of IoT devices supporting “life critical services” which are currently tied to 2G.  

VMO2 noted decommissioning 2G would mean it could switch resources to 4G and 5G, having turned off 3G in 2025.

Advantages cited include redeployment of spectrum resources, cutting energy consumption and generally upping service levels for customers.

The operator reports its 2G network currently carries less than 0.5% of all data used by its customers.

VMO2 CTO Jeanie York said “having recently switched off our 3G network and signed up to the government 2G switch-off charter, we know exactly how to do this responsibly and without disrupting customers. While most customers won’t need to take any action at all, some businesses might need to start planning for this now”.

“We will communicate with customers directly and ensure we support everyone as this essential upgrade takes place.”

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Ericsson unveiled product upgrades and introduced defined business strategies intended to aid operators in their efforts to up network autonomy.

The announcements from the vendor’s Cloud Software and Services division were made at DTW Ignite 2026 in Copenhagen, Denmark today (23 June).

Its main product upgrade is for the Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform, which is being expanded from being RAN-centric to support core networks. This, it noted, creates a “unified RAN and core network automation” system for operators.

Ericsson promoted the move as accelerating operator autonomous network transformation and aiding efforts to streamline operations, cut costs and “deliver a more resilient and higher performing core network”.

The vendor asserted the “major expansion” makes it the first to introduce the ability to run core-specific automation applications (cApps).

Ericsson is in the process of developing use cases which will become cApps. The initial batch will cover network use cases for resiliency and performance, and service-oriented iterations to provide premium customer experiences.

In another product-specific upgrade, Ericsson announced a data streaming capability in its Network Manager product for online, low-latency, closed-loop automation.

Operator aid.
The company’s second major announcement was the release of “OSS/BSS business value pathways,” strategies it believes provide guidance to help operators achieve automation aims.  

It stated the pathways are part of wider support for network transformation and commercialisation of AI capabilities.

They are said to provide “actionable routes to assured outcomes” and have been created from the vendor’s engagements with global operators, and its own expertise and product range.

Ericsson head of Solution Area BSS and OSS Mats Karlsson said “autonomous network transformation needs to happen now, at speed and at scale, but barriers and complexity present a challenge”.

“The new telco-specific pathways will help CSPs re-draw how they approach their network and IT evolution, helping them to focus on achieving specified outcomes as they accelerate the creation and monetisation of new services, improve overall efficiency and provide customers of all types with ever-improving differentiated experiences”.

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Google Cloud and Nokia outlined a plan to integrate agents made using Gemini AI models into the vendor’s network assurance platform, a move they promoted as aiding quick resolution of operator issues.

The pair asserted the six agents being created would provide dramatic gains for users of the Nokia Assurance Center.

In a joint statement, Nokia and Google Cloud pointed to the increasingly complex volume of data being generated by networks as causing issues for systems relying on manual troubleshooting, highlighting bottlenecks from an ever-escalating number of alerts.

“This partnership addresses these challenges by using agents to instantly process raw data, helping telecom providers distinguish critical infrastructure issues from background noise to accelerate repairs and protect revenue,” they explained.

The agents are said to be able to manage specific operational tasks or combine to solve more complex problems.

There are bots to analyse alerts; interpret performance metrics; investigate unusual behaviour; recommend remedies; create visual analytics; and one to manage communication between the others and interpret user intent.  

Google Cloud global telco market lead Sridhar Gollapudi said: “Agentic AI marks a fundamental shift in how telecommunications networks are managed, moving operators away from rigid templates to dynamic, goal-oriented automation”.

“By applying Gemini’s multimodal reasoning capabilities to complex data streams, this partnership helps operators to transition from manual workflows to a self-driving posture that lowers costs and optimises resources globally.”

Nokia SVP of Autonomous Networks Vivek Jaiswal added: “The AI era demands a new kind of network, one that is programmable, AI-native and able to operate at machine speed”.

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