LIVE FROM MWC24 LAS VEGAS: Shankar Arumugavelu, president of Verizon Global Services, set out the operator’s action plan to become the “world’s best AI applied company”, highlighting the importance of industrialising the technology and using its vast data resources in the right way.

Arumugavelu explained the US giant sees AI as a foundational technology that it has been using to “create a competitive advantage” for more than a decade, and its activity is now evolving to cover pretty much every aspect of its business.

“We’re leveraging AI to plan, build and run our network, deliver differentiated customer and employee experiences, optimise internal processes and drive operational efficiencies. We’re also creating new products that leverage AI and developing new revenue streams.”

While providing a broad overview of the technology’s potential, Arumugavelu explained there was some key steps it had to take to ensure AI delivers on potential

He said Verizon is currently on a journey to industrialise AI, automating and standardising processes to implement the technology at scale.

To do this, he said it is building a factory approach, ingesting more than 70 billion data points across the ecosystem every single day from more than 30,000 different data sources.

“We are modernising our data landscape because high quality data is foundational for reliable AI systems.”

Building blocks
He went on to discuss the risks associated with AI, including privacy, bias, lack of transparency and hallucinations, to name a few. To that end, the company has created an AI council, which oversees its approach to design, adoption, development and deployment.

“Implementing AI end to end can be thought of much like building a house,” he added. “You have to create a solid foundation that you can continue to build on and it starts with data as well as responsible governance.”