e& taking part in 4-D chess with its ‘AI-forward, AI-first technique’

In February 2022, Etisalat rebranded to e&; the UAE-headquartered multinational was early in doing the arduous work of reinventing from a telco to a tech-co, to borrow verbage from trade discourse. Two years in, Group Chief Technique Officer Harrison Lung offered an summary of the corporate’s technique with an emphasis on the basic function synthetic intelligence (AI) performs. 

Talking on the current Telco AI Discussion board (out there on demand right here), Lung laid out e&’s “4-D” technique: 

• “Doubling down on our core telco enterprise.” 
• “Diversifying our portfolio of income each geographically in addition to into expertise areas.” 
• “Digitizing our operations…We are able to solely digitize our operations, each consumer-facing in addition to our inside operation, leveraging most of the digital applied sciences on the market, together with AI.” 
• “Driving sustainability throughout our model…and other people and communities that we function in.” 

AI, Lung stated, “is de facto the guts of our innovation efforts.” The aim is to construct an “AI-empowered and an AI-first group” targeted on delivering innovation and driving productiveness. “We predict AI goes to be transformational to our enterprise,” he stated, calling out enhancements to buyer expertise, inside operations, price construction, and income enlargement. 

He additionally talked by how e& evaluates the applicability of AI to totally different components of the enterprise each current and aspirational. “Use circumstances [are] on the core of AI and AI implementation…Use circumstances [are] what the tip buyer will see and use in addition to our inside workers or frontline employees. We take into consideration how we assess AI use circumstances throughout a few totally different lenses,” primarily influence and feasibility. Affect covers every part from Internet Promoter Rating (NPS) to price/return. Feasibility considers how simple, or troublesome, implementation can be, availability/maturity of tech, the readiness of e&’s personal tech stack, and governance throughout its portfolio of majority- and minority-owned companies. 

AI for power effectivity and community optimization

In April e& printed a white paper that takes a deep dive into how it’s now and plans to make use of AI with an emphasis on driving sustainability in useful resource allocation and power effectivity and community optimizations. This covers a variety of areas, together with the usage of robotics to streamline and in any other case cut back handbook duties and AI-infused gross sales, advertising and retail experiences. 

Lung expanded on these focus areas: “From an total capex depth and spend perspective, the community is by far the biggest price class…for a telecom operator,” he stated. “In case you’re really in a position, by AI, to reinforce and optimize your community even by 1% and bettering this capex band, and even in some circumstances the opex band, when it comes to the community effectivity, the way you roll out the community, the way you run the community, there’s vital monetary influence to the bottomline.” 

He additionally referenced a three way partnership e& has engaged in alongside Deutsche Telekom, Telecom, Singtel, and SoftBank. Introduced throughout the newest Cell World Congress in Barcelona, the JV’s aim is to develop a telco-specific giant language mannequin (LLM) based mostly on the businesses’ information shops. “We can not do AI alone,” Lung stated. “We really feel like this JV actually has large upside alternative as a result of now we’re in a position to make use of this proprietary information to essentially improve the present, I’ll name it extra generic, giant language fashions and actually turbocharge it to make it tremendous related and tailor-made for our prospects.” 

AI-as-a-service to embolden connectivity choices

Recall e&’s rebrand and the purpose of it which was to develop past offering connectivity to reaching deeper into enterprise and authorities to offer connectivity, options, companies, consulting, and extra; e& extra for those who like.

A part of this was establishing its expertise companies group e& Enterprise which sells, amongst different issues, AI-as-a-service. “That is the place I believe the crux and the expansion alternative is for us to be a market-leading not simply telecom operator however a expertise firm globally,” Lung stated. “We’ve been on the forefront of offering this strong, dependable connectivity for near 50 years…With AI, our connectivity companies can really do greater than ship simply velocity and bandwidth. They allow good, data-driven choices that may enhance efficiencies and outcomes.” 

“We really feel like with the built-in providing we could be having the highest of the home dialog in addition to being [enterprises and governments] core companion,” he stated.