Telco AI: State of the Market, Q2 2024

This edition of the Telco AI: State of the Market series highlights AI commercialisation continuing to accelerate, with two thirds of AI deployments tracked across the telecoms sector now live. As well as recent developments from the telco AI space and the Telco AI tracker, this edition provides a deep dive on AI investment, highlighting how operators can target infrastructure investments where they have an advantage but partner where hyperscaler scale economics dominate.

Developments in AI this quarter highlight telecoms operators moving beyond connectivity to offer bundled infrastructure for enterprises. Sovereign infrastructure is further strengthening their role in markets with local data requirements, making partnerships and focused industry solutions key to success.

Many AI announcements in Q1 2026 focused on telecoms operators and partners building out sovereign capabilities to satisfy national requirements around data residency, compute and LLMs. Meanwhile, investment in agentic AI build-outs has extended beyond networks and software to machines, drones, cars and other industrial assets – so-called ‘physical AI’. As well as recent developments from the telco AI space and the Telco AI tracker, this edition provides a deep dive on the implications of the growth of on-device AI.