Frontier Telco: Navigating Enterprise Autonomy A Moderated Conversation with Anand Swaminathan, Infosys

Moderator:
Anand, we’re speaking just ahead of MWC 2026, a moment when the industry typically takes stock of where it stands and where it’s heading next. As you prepare for the conversations in Barcelona, what do you sense is top of mind for telecom leaders right now?

Anand Swaminathan:
It's a time of great opportunity, driven by AI. Leaders at the top of Telcos that I speak with are focused on how they can rapidly and safely capture this opportunity by leveraging the role their infrastructure and networks play in the foundation of the digital and AI revolution.

It’s an opportunity that must be taken because the core Telco business has become commoditized and growth has become a challenge. Yet, the broader geopolitical and technological changes driven by AI open a great opportunity for Telcos to be the sovereign, responsible and scalable guardians of this AI revolution. 

What’s exciting for me is the role Infosys has in pulling together the various technologies, platforms and business strategies that can help the Telco operators use this moment to leap ahead rather than be left behind.

Moderator:
There has been much talk about AI’s effectiveness, or lack of thereof. Where do Telco’s stand on AI as a technology within their organizations today?

Anand Swaminathan:
Over the last few years, most Telcos have moved beyond experimentation — almost every organization has tried AI in some form. But the reality is that most of this progress is still happening in pockets where the value stays fragmented.

At the same time, the technology itself has advanced dramatically. We now have the infrastructure, models and agentic capabilities to automate far more of the enterprise than ever before. And that has created a gap: AI is ready for scale, but the operating model of most Telcos isn’t.

That’s why we’re seeing this shift in mindset. Leaders are realizing that AI isn’t just a cost‑takeout tool or something for the Ops and IT teams. It’s a catalyst to redesign how the entire organization works — how decisions are made, how services are delivered, and how quickly value reaches customers.

This recognition is what’s pushing the industry to think bigger. Instead of incremental automation, they’re now asking: “What would our business look like if AI was embedded end‑to‑end?”

Moderator:
Is that shift what led to the idea of the ‘Frontier Telco’?

Anand Swaminathan:
Yes, our ‘Frontier Telco’ details how a Telco can navigate to a more Autonomous operating model, identifying specifically which elements of the business can be highly automated through AI, and which can generate new customer value and strategic oversight through combined human and AI enablement.

Moderator:
So is this an operating model shift, or a business architecture?

Anand Swaminathan:
It is a business architecture, but it’s also more than this. It’s a mindset shift for the whole organization. It is not just about how AI is done in IT or Ops, it also tackles what it means for colleagues, customers, business value and innovation. It’s holistic, it’s futuristic but it’s also a structure to proceed on a learning journey towards effective Enterprise AI enablement.

Much of this is enabled by agentic AI which helps Frontier Telcos transition from data silos to context-driven, agent-first architectures. These enterprises capitalize on Big Data as a strategic asset, exposed through governed APIs, and continuously curated by AI agents. In this model, data becomes the central nervous system of the enterprise, not a bottleneck.

Moderator:
Can you walk us through it how this is applied through an organization?

Anand Swaminathan:
The Frontier Telco is structured around three interconnected layers:

The Strategic Steering & Enablement layer is where AI supports executives with insights, but where human expertise, judgement and strategic thinking is paramount. It is where the performance of the whole organization and it’s AI elements is responsibly and safely orchestrated and monitored. 

In the customer value layer, AI guides sales and service teams and handles transactional interactions, while humans step in when empathy or nuanced understanding is required—such as resolving issues during travel or complex service scenarios.

In the intelligent operations layer, things are highly automated, with AI executing close to 80 or 90% of tasks. AI here acts as assistant, executor, and eventually autonomous operator, with humans validating only exceptions.

Moderator:
The Integrated Intelligent Operations layer seems to be where AI plays the defining role. How does this layer operate?

Anand Swaminathan:
This Integrated Intelligent Operations layer functions as a set of shared, automated platforms. AI agents manage the heavy lifting of operational work - service provisioning, network monitoring, incident resolution - at machine velocity.

Zero-touch fulfillment platforms automatically configure services. AI-Ops platforms predict and remediate network issues before customers are impacted. Humans intervene only for anomalies or complex scenarios, and these interventions are used to enhance the system continuously. 

Moderator:
How important is the Customer Value Orchestration Layer first. What changes for customers interacting with a Frontier Telco?

Anand Swaminathan:
The high level of automation in the operations layer of a Frontier Telco means that it can invest more in human-led value generation at the Customer Value Orchestration layer. Frontier Telcos can replace fragmented account structures with permanent, cross-functional Customer Value Stream Teams, aligned to specific segments and using the integrated operations layer below them to rapidly shape and deliver services to customers as per their needs.

Such teams own end-to-end outcomes - from solution design to ongoing performance. Importantly, these high-performance teams are measured on shared metrics such as customer uptime or time-to-revenue. Internal handoffs disappear, ensuring a deeply responsive and accountable engagement model.

For customers, this represents a very real shift.
Instead of navigating multiple teams, customers interact with a single, empowered group that understands their context, their history, and their priorities — supported by real‑time intelligence and predictive insights. Issues are resolved before they surface. Services are configured faster. Interactions feel more human, even if the underlying operations are highly automated.

And importantly, this isn’t about removing the human element. Quite the opposite — it elevates humans to focus on trust, relationships, and strategic dialogue, while AI ensures the customer experience is consistently fast, accurate, and adaptive.

Moderator:
How does Strategic Steering & Enablement maintain control without reverting to bureaucracy?

Anand Swaminathan:
At this layer the focus is on navigating and steering the system, not managing tasks. Finance teams move from static annual budgets to real-time capital efficiency models. People teams focus on reskilling - developing roles such as AI-Ops specialists and AI trainers.

Strategy teams monitor system health and negotiate trade-offs using live data. Governance becomes adaptive, while aligning with the pace of change. It becomes about orchestrating and enabling rather than interfering or micro-managing.

Moderator:
The Frontier Telco model you’ve developed also defines a long list of new roles that appear central to this model. Why are they necessary?

Anand Swaminathan:
New roles become essential because a Frontier Telco operates very differently from a traditional telecom organization. Once AI begins to automate 70–90% of operational work and starts influencing decisions across the enterprise, the human workforce must shift from doing the work to designing, supervising, and elevating the work. That requires capabilities that simply don’t exist today in most Telcos.

Some of these roles are evolutions of existing skills, but many are entirely new.

For instance, the role of an AI orchestrator doesn’t exist today but will be critical to the Operations layer. Or that of an AI Ethicist in the Strategy and steering layer, or Value designer at the Customer experience layer. Roles such as model trainer, evaluator, manager will also need to be developed, and training will have to be delivered to help people evolve into these new capabilities.

So, this is not just a technology adoption exercise — it’s a talent transformation as well. It will require reskilling at every level: frontline teams, middle management, and senior leadership. And that is what makes a Frontier Telco fundamentally different.

Moderator:
Large business transformations don’t have a great track record typically. What would you say to Telcos that might see this as yet another big digital transformation initiative.  

Anand Swaminathan:
It’s true that large transformations have historically struggled — but what we’re seeing now is categorically different. The risk of not transforming is far greater than the risk of acting. If Telcos don’t make this shift, they’ll stay trapped in legacy cost structures, fall behind on innovation and customer service, and risk becoming utilities in the AI economy instead of value creators.

So, this is not “another transformation program.” It’s a fundamental redesign of how value is created. And leaders now understand there is no Plan B.

That said, it is a mammoth task. It requires deep re-architecture across technology, operations, data, governance, and talent. No Telco can do this alone, and they shouldn’t have to.

Infosys is very proud of our Topaz Fabric, a multi-layer agentic services suite that unifies infrastructure, models, data, applications and workflows into a composable, agent-ready ecosystem. All of which is supported by deep partnerships with leading players such as Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, ServiceNow, Palo Alto Networks, Cognition, and hyper-scalers such as Google, AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle. 

Moderator:
As telcos prepare for MWC 2026, what are the key shifts leaders be thinking about?

Anand Swaminathan:
Telco leaders need to think about the role their organizations have to play in the future of global AI success. That means looking at how their existing infrastructure, assets and customer relationships can be transformed to support more safe, sustainable, sovereign and secure AI that provides benefits and opportunities for all people