Deutsche Telekom has 400 AI projects – CEO

• Telcos around the world are exploring ways to make the best use of artificial intelligence
• Deutsche Telekom has been thinking hard about how AI will impact the communications networking and services sector
• It has about 400 different AI projects up and running, CEO Tim Höttges told analysts during the telco’s second-quarter earnings call
• For the German telco giant, AI is more of a ‘cost task’ than an ‘IT task’, noted Höttges

We know that telcos around the world are working furiously to figure out how to benefit and gain a competitive advantage from the use of all manner of AI tools, but how are they actually going about this and what do they see as the ultimate benefits? According to its CEO Tim Höttges, Deutsche Telekom currently has “about 400” AI projects on the go. 

Höttges cited the number as he answered questions from financial analysts during the telco’s second-quarter earnings call for investors on 8 August. One analyst asked: “What are your latest thoughts on whether AI can be a boost to telecom sector revenues? Are you seeing any specific B2B use cases or demand from the hyperscalers or other players for network capacity?”

The CEO was clearly prepared for any questions about AI, but kicked off his response with a rebuke to those who think the current excitement around AI is just a blip and that it won’t have much lasting impact.  

“Let me start with the impact of AI. I said that in Barcelona [at MWC24] there was a super hype. And we know the hype cycle – it is coming down. And then we see a lot of consolidation and then we see the benefit of this technology. We have seen that for almost every technology in the past.”

He continued: “Therefore, I'm not irritated by the discussion which is currently taking place, that people don't see the benefit… I think it was an MIT professor who said there is no kind of productivity gain from AI which [has been] proved. [But] we have a strong belief in AI and its benefits. It is improving the speed of our organisation, it’s improving efficiency in a lot of routine areas [and] it’s improving the quality of our networks. 

“We have automated anomaly detection” and the ability to reduce the amount of time the network has to be taken offline to make changes and fixes, noted the CEO. “We are seeing benefits in our communication areas and I’ve just got another report from my legal department about the benefits there. It will help us to achieve our ambitious cost numbers [and] help us to automate the organisation. And it will help us as well to individualise customer contacts in a much faster way than we are able to do today” with existing IT systems. 

Höttges continued: “We are very excited about it. We have something like 400 projects up and running in the organisation – a lot of them are small but we have identified 15 big projects which we are driving.”

A few of these will be familiar to most telcos around the world – the automation of customer interactions, the development of bots to aid sales teams and training AI models to more speedily deliver useful insights to DT’s staff, “be it in technology or in the HR community,” he noted. 

“And don't forget, we have a big team sitting within T-Systems” – the operator’s enterprise IT and digital communications services unit – “and we see big benefits as well in network automation. We will have a deep dive during the Capital Markets Day, talking about autonomous networks and how AI can help us on that journey” (that is due to take place on 10 and 11 October). 

(The use of AI for network automation was also a big focus at this year’s DSP Leaders World Forum event, where Deutsche Telekom’s Ahmed Hafez, VP of technology strategy, opened the session titled Enabling the Autonomous Network with AI with an overview of industry developments.)

The CEO highlighted the productivity gains expected from the use of AI. “37% of all contacts in 2060 will be automated…  this [will] help us to reduce our internal costs… so we are very, very excited about that. To be honest, I’m not sure whether we say this is an IT task – 

I think it makes more sense to say this is a cost task... That is what we are working on for the Capital Markets Day, to say there are a lot of productivity gains coming from AI.

“We will keep on running and pushing on this with a lot of partners. And the selection of those partners is, I think, the most critical part today. So with AI, yes, we are clearly committed,” concluded Höttges. 

(For ongoing coverage of this critical topic, keep an eye on our coverage in Telecom’s dedicated Telcos & AI channel.) 

The CEO also commented extensively on DT’s second-quarter financial performance: You can see a video of the investor conference call here.

As reported earlier, Deutsche Telekom reported a strong set of financial results for the second quarter, with total group revenues up by 4.3% year on year to €28.4bn. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV