How telcos can turn AI into a force multiplier for CX

Telcos need to adapt their customer experience for the tap-and-swipe world. Gen AI and agentic AI are helping them do just that.

In the experience economy, telecommunications providers need to offer more than basic connectivity. Customers want the same level of convenience and personalization from their interactions with their telecom providers that they get from, say, Amazon. Not only do they expect their communications service provider (CSP) to know who they are when they engage with them, but they expect any issues to be resolved or transactions to be completed now, not a week from now. (You may relate to this behavior well if you have a household of Gen Alphas and Gen Zs.)

The industry has received the message loud and clear—and it sees generative AI as a strategic solution for boosting the customer experience (CX). In a recent Google Cloud survey, telecom executives named CX as a top area where they see consistent returns.

But they’re also going beyond gen AI to agentic AI. While gen AI is a great way to quickly gain insights and recommendations, agentic AI goes a step further. With agentic AI, intelligent AI agents interact with each other to orchestrate complex tasks, turning insights into decisions, adapting to real-time changes, and taking actions autonomously with little to no human input.

Here are three areas where telcos should combine generative AI and agentic AI to create a superior customer experience.

Making telco customer support fast—and smart

Many telecom providers have turned to gen AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants to handle routine queries and provide instant, accurate responses. This is a huge plus for an industry that still experiences a heavy volume of inbound calls.

For example, Cognizant partnered with a CSP to integrate gen AI into its 5G sales and service support processes. The CSP had sought a scalable platform that would improve customer satisfaction and reduce order fallout, churn and contact center costs. We created a conversational chatbot that enables consumers to order 5G home internet services on their own. The bots swiftly track down details such as plan summaries, product information and discounts that would otherwise have taken consumers several minutes to find.

Agentic AI could take this one step further: The technology could augment the bots to make decisions and take actions that could ultimately prevent negative outcomes like order fallouts. For example, after summarizing information on a consumer’s behavior, a bot powered by agentic AI could introduce a compelling offer that would keep the consumer from walking away before completing the transaction. Similarly, agentic AI could improve average revenue per user or reduce customer churn to achieve larger customer service goals.

Proactively resolving network issues

For telcos, network resilience is a key aspect of CX, as customers expect a reliable connection in all places, at all times. Gen AI is increasingly seen as a key component in enabling predictive analytics to identify potential issues before they affect customers. For instance, gen AI-powered anomaly detection systems can monitor network performance and detect deviations that may indicate upcoming problems. These alerts allow telecom operators to address issues promptly, minimizing disruptions and enhancing the customer experience.

Already we’re seeing telcos take important steps in this area. Vodaphone is exploring the use of gen AI to analyze the performance of network components, predict potential failures and suggest optimal configurations to prevent outages. At Deutsche Telekom's annual innovation competition, top honors for integration potential went to a groundbreaking solution for real-time network analytics using gen AI.

Again, agentic AI could further enhance network resilience by taking actions on network failures or outage predictions. Autonomous operations and network agents could work together to add network capacity or proactively fix issues.

Creating better, more personalized experiences

Consumers’ preference for personalized experiences is clear. But telco providers’ customer communications are often generic and unhelpful. Gen AI can change that scenario by analyzing customer behaviors and using the insights to create a personalized experience in a repeatable, cost-effective way.

Telecom giant T-Mobile is teaming with OpenAI to build IntentCX, an AI-driven platform that it hopes to launch later this year. T-Mobile says that instead of relying on rules-based solutions and fixed datasets, it will train IntentCX on billions of data points from customer interactions through its T-Life app. It predicts the resulting insights will help customer service agents better understand customer intent and offer proactive suggestions. The result: an experience that feels personal because it maps to actual behaviors.

In addition, the company can elevate IntentCX into operations and transaction systems, using virtual agents to make changes to customers’ service plans. For example, when customers reach out about a network issue, the system will determine whether the issue is with the carrier or the user's device and take action to resolve the issue.

New horizons for telecom CX

Together, agentic AI and gen AI will pave the way for a new telecom CX. By using the technologies to enhance customer support, proactively resolve issues and personalize experiences, telcos can offer a simplified, connected CX that meets market expectations—and stands up with the best of modern customer experiences.