Defining the next AI mission for telcos: revenue creation

Telecoms operators are already using artificial intelligence as a tool to cut operating costs, reduce churn, optimize processes and improve their overall efficiency. According to recent market reports, they are reaping benefits from their efforts so far.

For instance, a survey published by STL Partners in April 2026 found that 22% of telcos reported more than 10% cost savings in network operations from the adoption of AI. In addition, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates that customer care and network operations could see a 30% to 40% improvement in productivity through the use of AI.

Operators themselves are reporting positive efficiency outcomes from the deployment of AI, as illustrated by Vodafone. In the presentation of its full-year results for the financial year to March 31, 2026, Vodafone Group cited more than 70% automated resolution in its zero-touch operations, with generative AI being used for network diagnostics and optimization.

Now, the focus on AI investments is shifting from operational intelligence to monetization intelligence. In a saturated market, and following years of stagnant development, telcos are increasingly looking beyond efficiency gains and towards sustainable, AI-driven revenue growth.

Orange is an example of a telco that distinguishes between AI for Networks, and Networks for AI, aiming to build a robust and resilient framework that enables AI applications to be deployed rapidly, and at scale, and operated securely. The France-based group is targeting €600 million in value derived from AI by 2028 as part of its Trust the Future strategy.

How can AI drive revenue growth for telecom operators?

Emerging intelligence-based tools are shifting the focus from saving money to making money. As identified by Etiya, they include agentic AI and the Digital Twin of Customer, or DToC — an AI-powered, dynamic virtual representation of an individual buyer or customer segment.

These tools enable telcos to forge new revenue opportunities, moving them beyond selling connectivity and towards the marketing and sale of intelligent services and ecosystem offers, focusing on differentiating experiences and incremental business outcomes.

In essence, DToC and agentic AI can proactively identify and execute growth opportunities across customers, products, and partner ecosystems. The Digital Twin provides the foundation for real-time insights, scenario simulations, and recommendations, while agentic AI enables the autonomous execution of tasks.

This in turn allows telcos to understand the possible impact of their decisions before projects are actually implemented. They can continuously identify and validate new use cases, and autonomously translate revenue opportunities into tangible business results.

CX-driven business growth: three steps to success

A Digital Twin of Customer takes personalization beyond static, segment-based and reactive recommendations, and instead creates a real-time, evolving profile of each customer, capturing behaviors, preferences, and needs.

Step 1 in achieving CX-driven business growth is hyper-personalization at scale. Etiya’s Digital Twin of Customer analyzes data by looking at customer usage, interactions and feedback, identifying opportunities at the individual level, as well as across segments, niches, or so-called twin communities (groups with similar usage patterns).

The creation of offers based on such insights leads to highly relevant, customized offers, content and customer support, responding to actual customer needs, delivered at the right moment.

For telcos, this transforms personalization from a defensive tool for revenue protection into a growth engine, bringing higher conversion rates, reduced churn, improved customer lifetime value (CLV) and higher ARPU.

In practice, hyper-personalized recommendations can deliver 20%–35% higher acceptance, reduce churn probability by 15%–20%, and drive 12–18% ARPU growth through more precise targeting and predictive insights.

Step 2 is scenario simulation and forecasting, where DToC enables telcos to simulate “what-if” scenarios (such as changes to product and service pricing, bundles, and so on) and optimize their offerings to best match both customer expectations and business targets.

Before an offer is launched, Etiya’s Digital Twin of Customer can simulate likely customer reactions to various scenarios, predict churn risk, offer uptake, and revenue impact. By furnishing telcos with this knowledge in advance, they can be more confident in their decision-making.

Data-driven decisions help telcos optimize campaigns, minimize risks, and ensure maximum return on investment (ROI). Twin-based simulations can bring 30%-50% improvement in prediction accuracy, and, as a result of proactive retention, forecasting and targeted actions, marketers can see up to 15% uplift in CLV and up to 20% improvement in offer ROI.

In step 3, Twin insights feed into agentic processes, providing the context and decision intelligence that AI agents need to understand situations, reason about options, make informed decisions, and take action autonomously.

Through real-time insights, DToC enables more precise, efficient and productive agentic operation, thus moving beyond generic automation to context-aware business decisions.

Twin insights can trigger automated actions, including proactive support, a churn prevention campaign or targeted upselling, ensuring that the right action is taken for the right customer at the right time. This improves operational efficiency, reduces manual efforts and supports continuous revenue optimization.

Indeed, Etiya use-cases show that twin-powered agentic processes can lead to a 40%-60% reduction in Average Handling Time (AHT), up to a 25% increase in First Contact Resolution (FCR), and a 12-18 points improvement in tNPS.

On the path from efficiency to autonomous growth

In conclusion, telecoms is and always has been an innovative industry with manifold opportunities for growth, but both technologies and operations have become inherently more complex over the years.

As new generations of technology evolve, telcos still have to find ways of managing legacy services and infrastructure while building future value chains and revenue streams.

AI as a transformative business capability has already delivered tangible efficiency gains, but the next step is to look beyond operational improvements and focus on how AI can enable future growth.

The new blueprint for telecoms growth is about combining Digital Twin of Customer and Agentic AI as strategic resources to transform customer engagement from reactive to predictive and ultimately make it autonomous.

It means shifting the role of AI from driving efficiency and productivity to becoming a capability that can continuously identify, initiate and execute growth opportunities autonomously. Competitive advantage will increasingly depend on how quickly telcos can turn intelligence into action, and action into measurable business value.

Ultimately, telcos must move beyond simply managing complexity and focus on orchestrating sustained, profitable revenue growth.

To discover more about Etiya’s AI capabilities, Digital Twin of Customer and Agentic AI, contact the experts at Etiya today.