BT embraces GenAI with help from AWS

• The UK telco has unveiled its GenAI Gateway
• It has been developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• The gateway will enable BT staff to securely use multiple large language models (LLMs), including those developed by Anthropic, Meta and Amazon
• The deployment enables the ‘safe, responsible, flexible and scalable’ use of generative AI (GenAI) by the telco’s employees, according to BT

Recognising the need to streamline and keep tabs on the use of generative AI (GenAI) platforms by its staff, the Digital unit at BT Group has teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch a GenAI Gateway platform that will enable it to effectively manage, secure and scale the use of natural language processing (NLP) systems and large language models (LLMs) by its staff.   

The platform, which provides secure, private access to NLP systems and LLMs, developed by the likes of AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI and (of course) Amazon, will allow BT to ensure that GenAI foundation models are used effectively by its teams. 

BT noted that using a single, secure gateway “reduces duplication of effort and resources as BT Group scales and accelerates the adoption of generative AI as APIs, security configuration, infrastructure management etc can be managed centrally, reducing the risk of error along the way.” 

In addition, “central privacy controls, billing per use case, enterprise search, and use of multiple corporate data sources” will enable BT’s teams to be “flexible and responsible in the use of different AI models required” as the “ad hoc use of LLMs, whilst appropriate for test and development work, is not well suited to large-scale use; cost control, security and privacy need more careful management,” explained the telco.

And having a range of GenAI platforms via a single gateway means BT staff can use the most appropriate system for their needs, the LLMs can be monitored for ‘hallucinations’ and other issues that might impact performance or suitability, and the telco can avoid any kind of ‘lock-in’ scenario with a single GenAI platform developer.

The BT teams are already finding out if the theory is translating into practice: The GenAI Gateway is already live and being used in a trial at BT’s wholesale fixed access network division Openreach, which is summarising engineering notes related to Ethernet line and fibre broadband jobs, and the telco’s business, legal and procurement teams are also putting the gateway to the test. 

Deepika Adusumilli, managing director of data and AI at BT Digital, stated: “AI is helping us reimagine the future of our company. We believe that where our data is a constant, we need flexibility with our LLMs. GenAI Gateway allows us to tap into this powerful new set of technologies at scale, in a way that is safe, responsible, flexible and scalable, delivering the ambition we have for AI to unlock the human potential within BT Group, today and in the future.”

AWS is the natural GenAI platform aggregation partner for BT as the two companies struck a multi-year cloud and digital transformation deal in 2022, which was then extended in 2023. 

“The BT Group GenAI Gateway is showcasing how enterprises can effectively deploy generative AI at scale and speed,” stated Fabio Cerone, general manager for EMEA telco at AWS. “It’s been a brilliant, pioneering opportunity to collaborate and work backwards from the customer to provide a way to accelerate deployment of generative AI use cases into production with embedded security and compliance. The GenAI Gateway will trigger the flywheel effect in the adoption of generative AI, delivering quicker results for BT Group and its customers,” added Cerone. 

This move by BT makes total sense and it’s easy to see how this will bring lots of benefits to the telco, though it might, of course, raise the hackles of those BT teams that prefer to use Google- or Microsoft-backed systems. Chat GPT developer OpenAI (which is backed by Microsoft) is the notable LLM platform giant that is missing from the list of available platforms to the BT teams. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV