Artificial intelligence is undeniably making its presence felt in a number of key areas of development, as well as in many different productive sectors. Its rapid evolution could be an indicator of an ultimately even greater impact, as its capabilities and functions endlessly grow, and the speed at which it develops endlessly increases. The telecommunications market – traditionally highly permeable to any technological advancements – is currently undergoing a remarkable transition thanks to the arrival of AI.

Artificial intelligence and telecommunications: the keys to success

Nowadays, telecommunications and the capacity of networks to transmit information are practically an inseparable and interdependent pairing. In this way, artificial intelligence and its ability to deal with vast amounts of data – learning all the time and providing its algorithms with unprecedented flexibility and efficiency – means telecommunications network management has become incredibly versatile.

On the other hand, artificial intelligence’s ability to adapt to situations in real time makes it the perfect partner when it comes to anticipating problems or addressing them before they have the chance to turn into real issues for users. Telecommunications network security has also seen significant improvements thanks to AI, since issues in this area are often identified by spotting unusual or unexpected patterns and, in this sense, artificial intelligence is a real “expert” in detecting and correcting them.

How might artificial intelligence affect telecommunications customers?

Ultimately, it’s the users and customers of the telecommunications market themselves who will enjoy all the benefits of the interaction between their technologies, applications and artificial intelligence. And while there’s still a long way to go before we can really exploit new improvements, the most significant impacts are currently being felt in customer services – chat bots and virtual assistants are now more versatile, can respond faster and more organically, and can solve more heterogeneous issues than ever before.

Personalising products and services is also a much easier undertaking nowadays, achieving higher levels of success thanks to the ability of artificial intelligence to analyse patterns of behaviour among telecommunications users based on hard data. This means people’s preferences when using services and products can be called up much more easily, and systems can even predict how those same users will react to hypothetical news, offers or market changes in future.

New technologies thanks to AI and network maintenance and management

A number of technological developments in the telecommunications world are being driven by parallel advances in the field of artificial intelligence. Both 5G wireless technology and improved ways of connecting more and more devices to one another and, in turn, to networks – i.e. the Internet of Things – give rise to hopes of a fruitful collaboration between AI and more or less anything that involves data transmission, whether in the corporate world, leisure, entertainment or otherwise.

One of the most important applications of artificial intelligence in telecommunications will be optimising and automating network planning. AI can analyse historical and real-time data to predict traffic demand and adjust network capacities accordingly. This won’t just boost efficiency, but will also help to reduce operating costs.

AI can automate a wide range of maintenance tasks, such as identifying and troubleshooting network issues. AI-based systems can continuously monitor infrastructure health and perform adjustments or repairs autonomously, which ultimately minimises downtime and ensures smooth operations.

Despite all the above, it’s worth remembering that – particularly with regard to the type of AI implemented for telecommunications networks and other associated functions – there’s still a huge amount of ground to cover as the technology is still in the early stages of development. And while it’s true that certain areas such as customer relationship management and personalisation have already gained a bit of a head start, the possibilities in both areas remain endless.