LIVE FROM 5G WORLD 2018, LONDON: Magyar Telekom believes optimising network operations and maintenance, and a proactive approach to customer experience are low hanging fruit operators can improve with artificial intelligence (AI), provided the technology is used properly.

The Hungary-based operator’s CTIO Kim Larsen explained service providers must ultimately aspire towards offering services with zero defects or customer complaints by delivering networks which operate and configure themselves.

While he noted such goals may never be completely achievable, he argued operators should strive to do so by deploying AI.

Despite digitisation, operators are still “massively manual”. At his own company, the IT systems are “ancient, inefficent and complex”. Once simplified and optimised, machine learning can help make processes simpler.

For instance, AI can be used to identify and fix defects before customers even notice something is wrong.

Larsen said a complex architechture is not needed, as a simple machine learning algorithm can result in powerful solutions if used correctly, especially if it is “smart” and can learn on the go.

He said at the moment Magyar Telekom’s own efforts are still in trial mode and, though there are no concrete results, he believes the improvement AI will bring to customer experience can decrease churn rate.