TM Forum and AWS launch GAMIT to help telcos ramp up GenAI

The tool is based on anonymized, aggregated data from surveys conducted with more than 200 AI decision-makers at CSPs worldwide, we’re told, and is supposed to enable them to ‘benchmark their generative AI maturity’ against peers, identify priority use cases and ‘rapidly move from development through to production at scale.’

GAMIT began with data collection, followed by a design and testing phase, and the result is an interactive tool which ‘exemplifies TM Forum’s mission to help CSPs and their suppliers to transform and thrive in the AI era.’

The problem, according to TM Forum, is that telcos are struggling to move from ‘bolt-on solutions’ to integrating AI as a ‘built-in, native element’ across all operations.

Based on data gathered from GAMIT, the firm says only 25% of operators feel equipped to leverage advanced techniques like fine-tuning, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), and prompt engineering for accurate results, while 16% are confident in using these methods to optimise costs and ROI.

Leadership roles focused on AI are also limited, we’re told, with only a third of CSPs having a CXO dedicated to AI strategy, while 14% of operators have more than 10 GenAI use cases in production.

These findings, and presumably a glut of other statistics besides, have informed the benchmarking model that underpins GAMIT, which is based around six pillars of ‘maturity’. TM Forum has called these: ‘Technology Understanding and Maturity’, ‘Organization, Responsibilities, and Skills’, ‘Data Readiness and Availability’, ‘Governance, Privacy, Compliance, and Security’, ‘Business Objectives’, and ‘Taking AI Use Cases into Production’.

"Generative AI offers an unprecedented opportunity for CSPs to drive revenue growth and operational efficiency, but concerns around technical expertise, demonstrable use cases, accuracy and real-world costs are hindering their ability to fully realize its benefits,” said George Glass, Chief Technology Officer of TM Forum.

“GAMIT addresses these challenges by giving CSPs a clear benchmark of their GenAI maturity and a practical roadmap to scale it across their entire organization.  More importantly, the insights gained from GAMIT will inform the future direction of TM Forum’s collaborative initiatives, including our Catalyst projects and Innovation Hub, ensuring that Members have the data, resources and support they need to thrive in an AI-driven future.”

Ishwar Parulkar, Chief Technologist, Telecom at AWS added: “The pace of Generative AI innovation and experimentation in the telco sector has been impressive. In less than a year, we saw tangible use cases emerge that CSPs and telecom operators now seek to deploy at scale.

“Helping the industry to achieve their ambitions and create measurable outcomes by AWS working with TM Forum on supporting generative AI is a great opportunity for us. AWS. It is part of our intensive collaboration with CSPs to accelerate their generative AI journey and maturity. We look forward to TM Forum launching the tool at Innovate Americas and to engage with industry leaders on the next steps for generative AI.”

As with any comms promoting something to do with AI, the release is ballasted with various effusions as to how much AI will transform businesses’ fortunes, quoting a report from McKinsey which estimates that ‘nearly $100 billion in incremental value, and up to $180 billion in productivity gains, can be realised through GenAI.’

Boiled down, it sounds like GAMIT is supposed to give telcos a sense of where they are relative to the industry when it comes to using AI, and provide some guidance as to where to go next if they want to step it up. In that sense it seems to be doing something very similar to the GSMA’s Responsible AI (RAI) Maturity Roadmap, which was launched last week and purports to help telcos ‘adopt and measure responsible and ethical approaches to AI’.

Multi-billion dollar predictions from the likes of Mckinsey aside, Generative AI is still an unknown quantity in terms of exactly how much and in what way it might transform business operations in the years to come. You can probably expect a few more tools like these to pop up promising a guiding light through the fog.