How autonomy can directly unlock new top-line revenue streams
By James Pearce
Nov 5, 2026
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James Pearce, TelecomTV (00:05):
Hello and welcome to TelecomTV. I'm James Pearce. I'm delighted to be joined today by Mats Karlsson from Ericsson. Mats, thank you so much for joining us. From an OSS/BSS perspective, how do we shift the paradigm so that autonomy directly unlocks new top-line revenue streams instead of just the focus on operational agility?
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (00:25):
Automation is really adjusting the current processes and making them more efficient. Autonomy is really about putting a target, a desired outcome. And you can put a desired outcome on the network, you can put a desired outcome on the service you provide, you can even put a desired outcome on the specific customer. So autonomy I think is crucial for actually starting having services and providing services to customers with a guaranteed outcome. And I think we start to see a lot more operators having tiered offers— some operators are driving this. I mean having 5G+ or whatever they call it, but I think also when we're going, for instance, I mean, physical AI, you may want to charge based on the accuracy of the action that was taken, for instance. So I think it's all now coming together, but I think it's important that autonomy is not only needed for the pure efficiency, it's actually a need for actually being able to provide services with a guaranteed outcome.
James Pearce, TelecomTV (01:32):
That's really interesting. So as CSPs move towards selling guaranteed business outcomes rather than just raw bandwidth, what's the biggest challenge in aligning network orchestration with BSS contract and catalog management to enforce and bill against strict dynamic SLAs (Service Level Agreements)?
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (01:49):
I think there's a couple of challenges. I think we see one, it's been a challenge actually to create new offers at the pace. It doesn't really fly if it takes six months, you are not prepared to take the risk of creating any offers. The other one has been the complexity when you create a new offer. If you want to create an offer that is based on a guaranteed outcome, I mean you really would like to express that service and the outcomes in natural language and then making sure that you get the full support of actually the solution then deploying and making sure that it's actually assured and guaranteed in a network. So I think one is the speed and agility that we can create new services that will help drive innovation. And the other one is how do we remove the complexity actually creating all these offers and making it simpler for the people that are actually going to sell or deploy the services into the network.
James Pearce, TelecomTV (02:52):
Interesting. So if we look at the evolution from automated workflows to full intent-based autonomy, what's the biggest architectural capability that CSPs must build or modernize in their OSS/BSS stack over the next, say 12 to 18 months?
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (03:08):
I think there are couple of things. One is clearly if you're going towards autonomy and really guaranteed outcome, it's very hard to do autonomy without AI. I mean, it's clear that you need to be able to understand the network in real time, you need to understand the customer's needs in a different way. And I think you also need to understand the full experience of the customer's existing services. So AI is I think one of the foundational aspects, the complexity and the capability to take decisions to guaranteed outcome needs to be based on AI. I think what we are seeing now as the initial steps, I think is very important to actually understand the customer experience in your networks. And that is the starting point. I mean to fully understand what type of experience do my customers get on the different services. Because without that understanding, it's very hard to sell on a guaranteed outcome if you don't understand.
(04:06):
And I think the second part of also a very big technology shift is obviously to make sure that you have a solid service assurance solution so that you can actually understand the services and guaranteed outcomes. So AI, customer experience, service assurance are key ingredients. And I think we already discussed the capability to create and deploy new offers. But from a network perspective, I think these are the three ones I really see.
James Pearce, TelecomTV (04:32):
Mats, thank you so much for joining us today.
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (04:33):
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to TelecomTV. I'm James Pearce. I'm delighted to be joined today by Mats Karlsson from Ericsson. Mats, thank you so much for joining us. From an OSS/BSS perspective, how do we shift the paradigm so that autonomy directly unlocks new top-line revenue streams instead of just the focus on operational agility?
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (00:25):
Automation is really adjusting the current processes and making them more efficient. Autonomy is really about putting a target, a desired outcome. And you can put a desired outcome on the network, you can put a desired outcome on the service you provide, you can even put a desired outcome on the specific customer. So autonomy I think is crucial for actually starting having services and providing services to customers with a guaranteed outcome. And I think we start to see a lot more operators having tiered offers— some operators are driving this. I mean having 5G+ or whatever they call it, but I think also when we're going, for instance, I mean, physical AI, you may want to charge based on the accuracy of the action that was taken, for instance. So I think it's all now coming together, but I think it's important that autonomy is not only needed for the pure efficiency, it's actually a need for actually being able to provide services with a guaranteed outcome.
James Pearce, TelecomTV (01:32):
That's really interesting. So as CSPs move towards selling guaranteed business outcomes rather than just raw bandwidth, what's the biggest challenge in aligning network orchestration with BSS contract and catalog management to enforce and bill against strict dynamic SLAs (Service Level Agreements)?
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (01:49):
I think there's a couple of challenges. I think we see one, it's been a challenge actually to create new offers at the pace. It doesn't really fly if it takes six months, you are not prepared to take the risk of creating any offers. The other one has been the complexity when you create a new offer. If you want to create an offer that is based on a guaranteed outcome, I mean you really would like to express that service and the outcomes in natural language and then making sure that you get the full support of actually the solution then deploying and making sure that it's actually assured and guaranteed in a network. So I think one is the speed and agility that we can create new services that will help drive innovation. And the other one is how do we remove the complexity actually creating all these offers and making it simpler for the people that are actually going to sell or deploy the services into the network.
James Pearce, TelecomTV (02:52):
Interesting. So if we look at the evolution from automated workflows to full intent-based autonomy, what's the biggest architectural capability that CSPs must build or modernize in their OSS/BSS stack over the next, say 12 to 18 months?
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (03:08):
I think there are couple of things. One is clearly if you're going towards autonomy and really guaranteed outcome, it's very hard to do autonomy without AI. I mean, it's clear that you need to be able to understand the network in real time, you need to understand the customer's needs in a different way. And I think you also need to understand the full experience of the customer's existing services. So AI is I think one of the foundational aspects, the complexity and the capability to take decisions to guaranteed outcome needs to be based on AI. I think what we are seeing now as the initial steps, I think is very important to actually understand the customer experience in your networks. And that is the starting point. I mean to fully understand what type of experience do my customers get on the different services. Because without that understanding, it's very hard to sell on a guaranteed outcome if you don't understand.
(04:06):
And I think the second part of also a very big technology shift is obviously to make sure that you have a solid service assurance solution so that you can actually understand the services and guaranteed outcomes. So AI, customer experience, service assurance are key ingredients. And I think we already discussed the capability to create and deploy new offers. But from a network perspective, I think these are the three ones I really see.
James Pearce, TelecomTV (04:32):
Mats, thank you so much for joining us today.
Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (04:33):
Thank you.
Please note that video transcripts are provided for reference only – content may vary from the published video or contain inaccuracies.
Mats Karlsson, VP and Head of Ericsson OSS and BSS Solution Area, Ericsson
At Ericsson’s OSS/BSS Summit 2026, Mats Karlsson, VP and head of the Swedish vendor’s OSS and BSS solution area, discusses how shifting from basic automation to full autonomy empowers CSPs to monetise guaranteed outcomes rather than just raw bandwidth. He also shares why AI-driven customer experience, agile service creation and modernised service assurance are key to billing against dynamic SLAs in next-generation networks.
For more information read this blog: Monetizing autonomous networks: Five priorities for CSPs
Recorded October 2026
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