Strategic AI Implementation in Telco: Lessons from Liberty Global's Journey

The telecommunications industry stands at a pivotal crossroads where artificial intelligence is no longer just a buzzword but a transformative force. In a revealing fireside chat at Network X 2024, Nirali Patel, VP of Data and AI at Liberty Global, shared valuable insights on how telcos can strategically implement AI to enhance operations, improve customer experience, and drive business growth. This article distils key learnings from Liberty Global's AI journey, offering practical guidance for European telco professionals navigating similar digital transformation paths.

From Data Analysis to Generative AI: The Evolution of Telco Intelligence

With over 20 years of experience in data and AI across healthcare, financial services, and telecommunications, Patel has witnessed firsthand how AI has evolved from specialized technical tools to consumer-friendly applications.

She highlighted how the consumerization of AI through tools like ChatGPT has both reduced educational hurdles and created new expectation management challenges for enterprises.

For Liberty Global, AI implementation spans multiple domains:

Predictive maintenance to anticipate network faults
Customer churn prediction to retain subscribers
Content recommendation systems for media boxes
Agent assistance solutions for call centers

Strategic Focus: The Power of Prioritization

Rather than pursuing hundreds of AI use cases simultaneously, Liberty Global has adopted a focused approach under CEO direction. The company emphasizes being fast but focused, preferring to concentrate on four or five key use cases rather than hundreds.

This strategic concentration centers on three key areas:

Customer call centers
Engineering workforce optimization
Internal employee experience enhancement

By bringing together Liberty Global's five European franchises to collaborate on these focused initiatives, the company has created a unified approach to AI implementation that leverages shared learning while addressing common challenges.

Build vs. Buy: Making Smart AI Investment Decisions

One of the most critical decisions for telcos implementing AI is whether to build solutions in-house or purchase existing platforms. Patel advocates for a pragmatic approach based on several factors:

Key decision criteria:

Feasibility assessment: Data accessibility, regulatory concerns, privacy/security considerations
Value proposition: Cost-benefit analysis and expected ROI
Change management feasibility: Organizational readiness and capacity for adoption
Integration complexity: Compatibility with existing systems and infrastructure
Risk evaluation: Dependency on niche talent and specialized skills

Patel acknowledges the temptation to build solutions in-house but emphasizes the importance of evaluating whether it's worth it, if purchasing is viable, and what risks building internally might entail.

Enabling Success Through Partnerships

Liberty Global has established a "common AI team" - a center of excellence that partners with consultancies, system integrators, and solution providers for different use cases. This virtual team combines internal developers and data scientists with external partners, accelerating deployment timelines.

The company has made significant progress, deploying multiple products within a year of starting their program - an impressive timeline by industry standards.

Field Operations: AI in Broadband Deployment

For telco field operations, Liberty Global applies AI in several impactful ways:

Workforce optimization: Matching engineers to jobs they excel at and enjoy
Value-based planning: Strategic fiber deployment decisions
Fault prediction: Proactive maintenance through predictive analytics
Field engineering assistance: Providing technicians with real-time information and guidance

These applications help address industry-wide challenges like aging workforces while maximizing efficiency in network transitions from copper to fiber.

Regulatory Collaboration and Security Opportunities

As AI regulation evolves across Europe, Patel emphasizes the importance of telcos working closely with regulators through "co-learning" relationships. Drawing from her experience with GDPR implementation, she advocates for using data to demonstrate impact and negotiate reasonable flexibility.

Security presents a particular opportunity for telcos to reposition themselves, leveraging their extensive infrastructure to provide secure connectivity that customers can trust.

Conclusion: The Zero-Touch Network Vision

Looking ahead, Patel envisions a "zero-touch network" where AI and automation work hand-in-hand. Her practical advice is to avoid trying to tackle everything at once. Some Liberty Global markets focus on network operations automation, while others prioritize workforce and field operations - all contributing to the larger vision.

This article is based on insights from a Fireside Chat on "Repositioning the Telco in the AI Industry to Capitalise on its Prominence" featuring Nirali Patel, VP – Data Strategy and AI at Liberty Global and Ronan De Renesse, Vice President, Telecoms Research at Omdia Group at Network X 2024.

Human Insight, Summarised with AI.