This report examines the key opportunities for telecom operators to monetise enterprise AI and secure long-term relevance within the emerging AI ecosystem.

The opportunities for telcos to regain relevance and monetise enterprise AI

Telcos have been early adopters of AI in their own operations, using it to automate network planning and operations, deploy customer chatbots and support customer-facing functions. We have analysed this extensively in previous research, estimating the financial impact of analytics, automation and AI for operators (find out more in one of our reports on the topic here).

However, telcos are also keen to understand the AI monetisation potential. This report mainly focuses on enterprise AI opportunities, while elsewhere, we have explored how telcos are experimenting with consumer AI. Internal adoption remains an important first step, as it equips operators with the skills and capabilities they need to support enterprise customers’ AI journeys and helps them build credibility.

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Broadly, STL Partners splits telcos’ enterprise opportunities into two buckets, outlined in the figure below.

Telcos can support enterprise AI across many areas

Some opportunities such as AI hosting demand heavy upfront capital expenditure (capex) to build infrastructure, while others such as managed cybersecurity services depend on scale, specialised talent (built or acquired) and brand credibility that can only develop over time.

Not all of these opportunities are exclusively AI-driven, but even those that are not will be accelerated by AI adoption. For example, demand for managed cybersecurity clearly already exists but will increase due to AI enhancing existing threats such as phishing while creating new, AI-specific ones, including model poisoning and AI-driven scams.

There is no universal model for the way telcos should pursue AI opportunities. The right approach depends on each telco’s existing enterprise customer base, market context, ambition, strategy, access to capital and capabilities.

Table of contents

• Foreword
  • Methodology
  • Editorial independence
• Executive summary
  • AI infrastructure: Connectivity and compute
  • Services: AI software solutions, managed services and adjacent offerings
  • Next steps
• Telcos are being sidelined from enterprise AI
  • Enterprise AI is rapidly evolving towards agentic
• The opportunities for telcos to regain relevance and monetise enterprise AI
• Connectivity
  • Enterprise networks will be impacted – but not equally and not all at once
  • AI compute is a key opportunity for operators to differentiate beyond connectivity
  • Beyond infrastructure
  • Telcos as SIs delivering professional services
• Conclusion
• Access model methodology

Related research

• Mobile network API monetisation forecast 2024–2030: Can telcos make up for lost time?
• How telcos can put their stamp on digital identity
• Not all telcos need to build their own AI factories
• Networks for AI: Segmenting the growth

Jonas Topp-Mugglestone

Jonas Topp-Mugglestone

Consultant

Jonas is a Consultant at STL Partners, specialising in data centres and M&A.