Prianca Ravichander, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Tecnotree, highlights why intelligent networks are critical to Europe’s digital future.
Europe has spent the past decade laying the physical foundations of a digital future on a historic scale. More than €500 billion is being invested in digital connectivity across fiber, mobile spectrum, edge infrastructure and cloud interconnect. More than 80% of Europe’s population now has access to 5G coverage, with fiber networks reaching most urban households. By traditional standards, Europe is well connected.
However, a contradiction has arisen. Despite increased infrastructure investment, telecoms revenues across Europe have remained broadly flat, average revenue per user continues to decline, and the majority of the economic value created based on connectivity is captured outside the telecoms sector, by hyperscalers, digital platforms, and application ecosystems. The problem Europe currently faces is not a lack of connectivity, but a lack of value creation.
As Europe accelerates its 5G rollout and begins to lay the conceptual foundations for 6G, the decisive question is no longer how fast the network is, but how intelligent it is. Connectivity alone will not achieve Europe’s ambitions for digital sovereignty, industrial competitiveness and sustainability. The next stage of digital infrastructure will rely on the intelligence inherent in the network itself.
For decades, communications networks have been designed as neutral conduits that are highly reliable, highly regulated, and largely passive. Their role was to efficiently move data from point A to point B. Intelligence resided in applications and cloud platforms on top of the network. This architecture made sense in the era of static services and predictable demand. It doesn’t work in an economy defined by real-time interactions.
Adaptation to structural changes
Today’s digital society is shaped by autonomous systems, immersive media, industrial automation, and machine-to-machine interactions. Smart factories, connected mobility, telemedicine platforms, energy grids, and digital public services all operate in millisecond-level feedback loops. In this environment, networks that simply carry traffic, no matter how fast, cannot support the complexity of modern digital systems.
Here the industry is experiencing a tectonic shift from scripting to systems that think.
The first wave of intelligence in telecommunications took the form of rules and scripts. Early chatbots followed decision trees. Network automation relied on static thresholds and predefined responses. While these tools reduced operational costs, they rarely improved customer experience or system resiliency in any meaningful way. It worked when reality matched the script, but failed when reality didn’t.
What is emerging now is decidedly different. Modern networks generate vast amounts of real-time telemetry, including performance metrics, location data, device behavior, service events, quality metrics, and usage patterns. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) now allow this data to be analyzed as it is generated, rather than in reports weeks later. It can recognize patterns, make predictions, and trigger actions autonomously.
This marks a shift from automation to cognition. Networks are evolving from reactive systems to adaptive systems that can sense their environment, learn from their actions, and act in real time. A simple example is the human nervous system. Nerves do more than just transmit signals. They interpret stimuli, prioritize responses, and coordinate movements throughout the body. Networks that can reflect intelligence work similarly.
Technology intelligence with human capabilities
The most significant impact of this change is not limited to customer-facing automation. AI is increasingly becoming a force for human empathy. By instantly summarizing customer history, transcribing conversations in real-time, and providing contextual recommendations, AI reduces the cognitive load on human agents and allows them to focus on what machines can’t replicate: judgment, nuance, and emotional intelligence.
Sentiment analysis adds another layer of intelligence. By analyzing tone, language, and behavioral cues across calls, chats, emails, and social media, operators can understand customer frustration, intent, and churn risk in real time, often before problems escalate. This allows for earlier intervention, more personalized engagement, and ultimately stronger trust.
This is not about replacing humans with machines. It is the enhancement of human abilities through intelligence.
Despite the hype surrounding AI, European operators are approaching adoption with discipline rather than recklessness. About 25% have reached large-scale AI automation across key customer care or operational channels, and about 75% are actively piloting or expanding AI-assisted capabilities. This cautious approach reflects a keen awareness of regulatory, ethical and customer experience risks.
At the same time, expectations are ambitious. Within the next three years, one-third of operators expect 25-50% of all customer interactions to be handled by AI, and nearly one in five expect more than half of their interactions to be managed by AI. This is not a fringe experiment. This is a fundamental change in the operating model of telecommunications businesses.
When operators are asked about barriers to AI adoption, no single obstacle is most important. Challenges are spread across technology integration, compliance and privacy, cost, customer resistance, staff training, and organizational change. The message is clear. The success of AI-driven networks depends not only on technology but also on governance, trust, and change management.
You can also see where AI is providing the most immediate value. Operators are prioritizing self-care automation, technical troubleshooting, billing, payments, and onboarding. These areas are high-interaction areas with clear operational implications. More experimental use cases, such as AI-driven promotions and advanced recommendation engines, are ranked lower. Experience stability and trust are prioritized before monetization experiments.
This evolution has important implications for Europe’s long-term competitiveness. Intelligent networks can dynamically optimize energy consumption. This is an important feature as energy costs rise and sustainability goals tighten. It can support delay-sensitive industries such as robotics, logistics, and advanced manufacturing. These will enable more responsive, resilient and inclusive digital public services.
It also creates new monetization opportunities. When a network understands the context (who is using it, where, how, and for what purpose), intelligence itself becomes a service. It enables experience-based pricing, on-demand network slicing, guaranteed real-time service, and industry-specific digital platforms. Connectivity moves from a commodity to a platform that creates value.
Intelligent networks for a better digital future
As 6G gains more attention, it is important to recognize that it is intelligence, not just spectrum, that defines responsiveness. 6G networks without intelligence will only make today’s challenges faster and bigger. In contrast, intelligent 5G networks can already deliver many of the outcomes associated with next-generation infrastructure.
Europe now faces a strategic choice. You can continue to invest in connectivity while creating value elsewhere, or you can build intelligence into the fabric of your network to transform your infrastructure into a foundation for innovation, resilience, and sustainable growth.
The winners of the next decade will not be those who build the fastest networks, but those who build the smartest networks. A network that can sense, learn and act in real time will define Europe’s digital future. In a milestone-driven economy, intelligence is no longer an option. It has become the infrastructure behind everything.
source of information
European Commission – Digital Decade Policy Program
ETNO – The current state of digital communications in Europe
GSMA – Mobile Economy Europe
OECD – AI, data and digital infrastructure
McKinsey – AI-enabled communications company
Gartner – AI in Customer Service and Network Operations
ITU – Towards 6G
This article will also be published in the quarterly magazine issue 25.
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