Videos
Colt’s View on Scaling AI and Building the Frontier Telco
Insights
- AI has moved beyond experimentation into real business workflows, where it is actively reshaping operations, efficiency, and business models.
- Scaling AI is not a one-time shift but a continuous journey, requiring flexibility, evolving economics, and the ability to adapt to rapid technological change.
- The “Frontier Telco” will be defined by layered transformation across infrastructure, digital services, and solutions, with partnerships and ecosystem integration at its core.
At MWC 2026, Ashish Surti of Colt Technology Services explores how telecom operators are transitioning from AI pilots to scaled, enterprise-wide deployment. The discussion highlights how AI is no longer conceptual but embedded into workflows, driving measurable efficiencies and reshaping business models. He addresses the realities of scaling, including rapidly evolving technology choices, shifting ROI expectations, and the need for organizational agility. The conversation also introduces the concept of the “Frontier Telco,” where transformation spans infrastructure, digital services, and solution-based partnerships to serve both human and machine customers. Underpinning it all is a clear message: successful AI transformation is driven less by technology alone and more by people, mindset, and the ability to adapt at speed.
AI moves from pilots to scale
Samad Masood:
The era of experimentation has ended. It’s now time to scale.
Ashish Surti:
If I think back to last year there was a lot of concept about AI and I think there was a bit of confusion about what AI is, where it starts, where it finishes, do you use it within the systems or is it on the data alone? Is it just there to give you insights, or does it do something different? I think if you look now, right now, you’re now starting to see how it impacts workflow, how it impacts business models, how you can actually try and drive some efficiencies in organizations.
So I think, this is what I’m saying, it’s now no longer a conceptual thing, you’re now starting to see some tangible things you can put into your business workflow, which I think is exciting.
Scaling AI comes with challenges
Samad Masood:
What do you think of the challenges going forward now as you take those sort of pilots and move them across the rest of the organization?
Ashish Surti:
The fundamental piece here is that it’s changing so fast. Its evolving much faster than any other technology evolution that we’ve seen around us. What you choose today could be completely different for tomorrow or the day after. The economics is changing, the return on investment cycle is changing, the pace at which you have to think, I think these are some of the challenges.
Scaling AI is a journey
Ashish Surti:
You know when we talk about autonomous networks as well, you know frankly, I mean that’s a journey that you go on. It’s not something you can switch on overnight.
You do have to experiment, you have to try some things out. I think you also need to make sure you’ve got a mindset that’s quite open because you might find that you’re going down one path and then you’ve to pivot and do something else as well.
Some of the bets that we made two or three years back, we centralized a lot of our data reporting platforms which gives us a nice lake to work from, and we’re looking at agentic layers that can sit on top of that to change the way we look at data, how we find insights, how we find the next step our employees need to take.
Rearchitecting for the Frontier Telco
Ashish Surti:
The Frontier Telco for me is a visionary north star. There are steps in the journey we have to take.
We’ve kind of laid out three views of our organization. They’re not organizational structures, but it does kind of align to the Frontier Telco. So the bottom layer is all about our infrastructures as a telecom company, which is the transactional part.
The next layer is what we call the digital part. It’s the more digital services, so the IP access, the ethernet, and we’re also looking at how we interact with our customer base. We also recognize for example, that our customers of today may not be our customers of tomorrow.
The new generation of customers might be machines, they could be API connections of some form. So, we’re trying to change that digital experience to make sure we can cater for the future of the customer.
And then the final part is the solutions part of the business which is the how do we solve problems for our customers by stitching together a series of capabilities.
The infrastructure layer, we’re working through our internal processes to deliver those services in the most frictionless way. Some of that’s technology, some of it’s people, and process.
The digital side, everyone’s talked about Network-as-a-service. We’ve accelerated our plans about orchestrating on the network much faster, digitalizing the experiences for our customers.
And then the solution side is more around partnerships. How can we build those partnerships so we can get the outcomes for the customers.
Technology change starts with people
Samad Masood:
What are the things that you think need to happen there to change mindsets or capabilities?
Ashish Surti:
This is 90% people, 10% technology. The technology, generally you can do a lot, a lot with, but it’s whether it’s going to get adopted by people, whether they are going to change business processes, those are the things that have always challenged us along the way. And that’s where you have to really double down on how you take change in your organization, how you do change management.
