DTW Ignite 2025 showed a telco industry that is truly embracing AI and trying to use it as a platform for accelerated transformation. We hope it succeeds.

AI was the dominant theme at DTW Ignite 2025

One of the great things about TM Forum’s DTW Ignite events is that they are rich in quality content and information. Many high-calibre presenters come to this event ready to be frank, open and detailed about both their successes and struggles. The corresponding challenge is in sorting through an almost overwhelming quantity of presentations, talks and demos to find the most informative, challenging and fresh to gain true insight on progress in the telecoms industry.

Three STL analysts attended this year, gaining insights across all three of TM Forum’s industry mission categories: Autonomous Networks; Composable IT and Ecosystems; AI and Data Innovation.

We saw many interesting demos and presentations, some of which are detailed in this document where they exemplify a key theme we have identified. Clearly the dominant theme was AI, and agentic AI in particular. Of the many TM Forum Catalyst demos across all three categories, we estimate that 95% of them featured AI, and maybe 50% agentic AI. Perhaps half of those agentic AI demos also had an element of agent-to-agent (A2A) interaction.

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Agents, agents everywhere

We noted a marked acceleration in how telcos are adopting and innovating with AI. In this industry that has been slow and unwieldy as it tries to transform and that has often missed the boat on key technology opportunities by acting too late or by being too rigid, the approach to seizing the opportunity presented by fast-evolving AI technologies looks different to past patterns. In our coverage of DTW 2024 we wrote of the sense of hope created at that event, hope that the telecoms industry could change the story, and be uncharacteristically fast and effective in seizing the AI opportunity. At the event this year, this hope was not disappointed. We see solid progress, and hope that these efforts will, in time, produce strong results for the industry.

In this report we look the key areas where AI is having an impact in telecoms, as seen at DTW Ignite 2025: network automation; revenue growth; APIs and marketplace business models; security.

Table of contents

• Main industry trends at DTW Ignite 2025
• One step closer to autonomous networks?
• AI agents in the network and OSS: What architecture and platforms?
• Other network considerations
• GenAI for revenue growth
• Agentic AI as a catalyst for APIs and marketplaces
• Security – urgent, but absent

Related research

• Total addressable market for AI solutions in the mobile telco network and OSS: USD18bn by 2030
• Organisational foundations for responsible AI
• Productising NaaS: A case study from India’s most disruptive player
• MWC 2025: A tech show, not a telecom one

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