For much of the past two decades, telecom operators (telcos) have played a critical role in laying the foundation of the digital economy without fully sharing in its rewards. As mobile data traffic grew at extraordinary rates and successive waves of digital video, social media, and cloud adoption reshaped global commerce, technology titans and emerging start-ups captured most of the value. Operators financed and operated the infrastructure, but returns often struggled to exceed the cost of capital. Digital transformation efforts improved efficiency but did not alter the structural equation.
The industry now faces a more consequential inflection point. The rapid emergence of gen and agentic AI, combined with maturing 5G, fiber buildouts, and evolving infrastructure ownership models, is reshaping both the demand for, and the economics of, connectivity.
AI is driving a new wave of demand for data centers, fiber routes, power, edge capacity, and distributed compute. Unlike previous traffic cycles, this shift touches not only networks but also the broader infrastructure stack and the enterprise solutions layered on top of it.
Yet AI is not simply another source of traffic growth. Embedded at scale, it becomes an execution layer—capable of redesigning end-to-end processes, reshaping cost structures, and informing operational decisions across the enterprise. The central question is not so much whether AI can create new value, but how to reorganize the enterprise sufficiently to capture it.
This collection examines what it would take for telecom operators to successfully seize this new opportunity. The three core articles explore the foundations of reinvention: coordinating strategic moves across organizational transformation, growth, infrastructure, and market structure; embedding AI natively into the operating model to unlock material impact; and expanding operators’ B2B presence credibly beyond connectivity as enterprise value migrates toward security, intelligence, and trusted AI-enabled services.
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Complementing these perspectives are focused issue briefs that explore the competitive arenas shaping the next phase of performance: AI infrastructure and sovereign AI; AI-driven networks; the evolution of tower and fiber value creation; shifting satellite connectivity; and new pathways for consumer growth beyond the traditional core. Across each runs a common theme: Value pools are moving upward and outward across the digital stack. The strategic question for telecom operators is where along that stack they can compete effectively—and how to avoid repeating a cycle in which others capture disproportionate value.
The opportunity is significant, but success is far from a given. Access to AI, spectrum, fiber, or capital alone will not determine outcomes. Strategic coherence and disciplined execution will. Operators that treat this period as another incremental upgrade risk reinforcing the industry’s recent struggles. Those that use it to redesign their enterprises and reposition themselves within the AI economy may finally reset their trajectory.
Click here or at the top of the page to download the full PDF of this compendium.