AI and the token economy: telco role, telco value

Growth in AI consumption is creating commercial opportunities across the AI value chain. GSMA Intelligence’s telco in AI dataset shows that telcos’ initial AI activity largely focused on relatively low-risk applications aimed at improving operational efficiency, including customer care, sales and marketing, and network automation. Over the past year, however, investment has increasingly extended towards revenue-generating services and enterprise propositions, with operators assuming a broader range of roles across the AI value chain.  

Telcos in Asia Pacific are particularly active across multiple layers of the AI value chain. They account for 43% of those participating in the infrastructure layer and 38% in the model layer. They have also launched over 50 different AI solutions for end customers. This position reflects the combination of large and linguistically diverse markets, government-backed national and sovereign AI agendas, expanding AI infrastructure investment, and the scale of leading regional operators and technology ecosystems.

Opportunities are also emerging in other areas. China is the first market in Asia Pacific where all three major telcos have begun packaging access to AI models around tokens. The offers remain at an early stage but indicate how telcos can turn AI consumption into a billable service, combining model access with distribution, cloud infrastructure, connectivity, security and support.