Unlocking business value: Agentic AI applications in telecommunications across APAC

In the third and final instalment part of our Agentic AI in APAC series, we explore how forward-looking telcos across the region are turning ambition into action - operationalizing agentic AI to rewire operations and reimagine growth.

For the first blog "From automation to autonomy: the APAC Agentic AI journey", click here to read it.

For the second blog "Driving revenue growth with Agentic AI: strategic opportunities in APAC's key verticals", click here to read it.

The CEO imperative

As Ainkaran Krishnarajah, from Exponent Venture Group puts it: “We see that winning telcos won’t treat agentic AI as just the next tech experiment or transformation theatre. The advantage goes to those who see agentic AI as a strategic tool to solve real customer problems—and know how to execute and turn that insight into impact.” 

Telcos must reinvent themselves to stay relevant, and agentic AI may be the most powerful lever they’ve deployed in a generation.

“You can’t unlock business value without first unlocking leadership conviction. Agentic AI only works if you’re willing to act on what it tells you,” says Krishnarajah.

To realize the full potential of agentic AI, leaders must see it not just as a technology initiative but as a strategic business transformation. Even the best models won’t deliver impact without executive ownership and follow-through.

What leaders must do:
• Establish governance that links AI insight to action
• Build accountability for using AI outputs
• Champion a culture of data-led decision-making
• Fund change management alongside tech
• Measure both AI performance and organizational response

Thought experiment: if every telco process became an AI Agent

"We see agentic AI as a catalyst for transformation—moving beyond task automation to reshape execution and open the door to entirely new ways of creating value," explains Krishnarajah.

Imagine a telco where every workflow, decision, and customer interaction is powered by an AI agent, leaving humans to focus only on where they truly add value. The result wouldn’t just be a more efficient telco; it would be a fundamentally different business.

Agentic AI enables real-time decisions, personalized experiences, and continuous adaptation. The human role shifts—from doing the work to designing the system.

The strategic question becomes: optimize the core, or leap beyond it?

With core connectivity - voice, data, access - commoditized and pricing power eroded, agentic AI offers telcos the opportunity to reimagine their relevance:

• From selling gigabytes to solving daily problems
• From mass marketing to micro-solutions
• From monolithic products to modular experiences

Telcos that use agentic AI to speed up old ways of working will fall further behind. The ones who treat it as a platform for launching new business models—commerce, content, finance, automation—will define the next era of digital infrastructure.

“The future telco isn’t defined by towers and fiber, it’s defined by intelligence at scale. Agentic AI is the infrastructure of this new operating model,” suggests Krishnarajah.

Beyond the buzz: practical deployments across APAC telcos 

While the promise of agentic AI is real, success depends on grounded expectations. Today, the biggest returns often come from operational efficiency, rather than revenue uplift.

Telcos should expect:

• Necessary substantial groundwork in data infrastructure and integration before advanced agentic applications can deliver their full potential

• Initial deployments to target well-defined operational challenges with clear efficiency metrics

• Return on investment to primarily come from operational savings in the near term, with revenue-generating applications requiring more development

Krishnarajah says: “The shift from pilots to platforms is already underway. We’re seeing telcos stop experimenting at the edges and start deploying agentic AI where it matters—at the heart of operations, networks, and customer value.” 

Many APAC telcos begin with horizontal applications: document processing agents that extract, categorize, and act on information, or tools that generate sales and marketing materials.

Examples from across APAC: 

Customer care 
• Smart deployed Google Cloud's Telecom Subscriber Insights to analyze customer data and design more inclusive mobile services
• Telkomsel launched an enterprise-focused customer service agent explicitly designed for Indonesian businesses

Network automation
• China Unicom Jiangsu adopted AsiaInfo's autonomous network copilot for network augmentation and real-time analysis
• StarHub implemented Nokia's Altiplano Access Controller to automate and optimise its XGS-PON network rollout in Singapore

Sector-specific agent solutions
• China Mobile Jiutian has created agents for customer care and public sector applications
• SKT and KT are developing culturally tailored AI services, with SKT planning a nationwide rollout of Aster in late 2025

These aren’t isolated pilots; they represent a broader shift toward intelligence-led growth.

APAC’s telco Agentic AI deployment

Omdia’s research finds the APAC region well-positioned to lead agentic AI in telecoms due to three forces:

1. Operational complexity management
Telco networks are becoming increasingly heterogeneous as new consumer and enterprise services roll out. This complexity brings more internal processes, higher demands for personalized marketing and sales, and greater regulatory scrutiny. Automation is no longer optional—it’s essential to stay operationally resilient.

2. Revenue growth challenges
Telcos are facing growing uncertainty in their ability to increase revenue. The average revenue per user (ARPU) has been under pressure for years. When you strip out price increases, underlying ARPU growth paints a bleak picture. With limited pricing power and rising cost bases, agentic AI offers one of the few scalable levers left to improve productivity and unlock new value.

3. Digital readiness
Years of investment in network function virtualization and cloud-native systems, mean many APAC telcos are now digitally mature. According to Omdia’s Digital Telco Index, players like China Mobile and SK Telecom are among the most advanced globally—well positioned to operationalize both generative and agentic AI.

Agentic AI is no longer on the horizon, it’s already in the core workflows, platforms and strategies of APAC’s most innovative telcos. As we conclude this blog series, one lesson stands out: the real value lies not in experimentation, but in execution.