To embed our video on your website copy and paste the code below:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4bSFDSZiovM?modestbranding=1&rel=0" width="970" height="546" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (00:00):
I'm Clarence Reynolds at MWC26. AI native routing operations are evolving beyond basic assistance toward true agentic intelligence that can reason and act across complex networks. Andrew Baldock, senior product marketing manager at HPE, joins us to discuss the shift from predictive tools to autonomous networking. Andrew, thank you for being with us today. Now you've had an AI assistant for routing for some time. What makes your new Agentic AI capabilities fundamentally different?
Andrew Baldock, HPE (00:30):
So our new Agentic AI capability can actually make changes to the network. That's what's fundamentally different about it. Previously, we had something called LLM Connector, which was capable of analyzing the network, KPIs, telemetry information, configurations. But with this Agentic AI support now, we can actually make changes to the network on behalf of the end user via a simple chat interface, an AI assistant, basically. And that really kind of saves a significant amount of time for the end user. I'm talking about from hours to minutes in some cases, or even longer, days to minutes. So that's the big change. Yeah.
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (01:15):
With so many Agentic AI solutions at MWC, what are the most important factors customers should evaluate to cut through the noise?
Andrew Baldock, HPE (01:23):
Absolutely. Well, I would say there are two key things that they would need to evaluate. One is, does your Agentic AI system have access to the relevant tools so that it can verify that the recommendations it's making and indeed the changes it's making in the network are successful. Without that, you can't trust your AI system. And the second thing I would say is flexibility. The ability to use, for example, our customers own LLMs and connect our Agentic AI system to their LMs, whether they be on premise or in the cloud. We all know how fast foundation models are evolving. Every day there seems to be a new LLM coming online. So we don't want to be the bottleneck that prevents our customers from adopting this incredible innovation of AI. That's it.
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (02:19):
In such a fast changing landscape, what clues can you share about the future role of AI in driving network operations?
Andrew Baldock, HPE (02:25):
It's really all about ... And in a sense, it's quite counterintuitive, but it's all about making more and more use cases entirely self-driven, which actually means not relying on an LM or an AI assistant. So the more we know about how our network behaves, the more patterns we recognize within our network, the more we can actually give to our AI ops engine, which can take care of everything on our behalf. So we don't even need to ask the AI assistant to fix a problem. It gets fixed for us. So that's kind of a little bit counterintuitive, but the future, in my view, is more and more AI doing the job, AI ops doing the job entirely on behalf of a user with no interaction whatsoever.
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (03:21):
Andrew, thank you for your insights today.
Andrew Baldock, HPE (03:22):
Thank you.
I'm Clarence Reynolds at MWC26. AI native routing operations are evolving beyond basic assistance toward true agentic intelligence that can reason and act across complex networks. Andrew Baldock, senior product marketing manager at HPE, joins us to discuss the shift from predictive tools to autonomous networking. Andrew, thank you for being with us today. Now you've had an AI assistant for routing for some time. What makes your new Agentic AI capabilities fundamentally different?
Andrew Baldock, HPE (00:30):
So our new Agentic AI capability can actually make changes to the network. That's what's fundamentally different about it. Previously, we had something called LLM Connector, which was capable of analyzing the network, KPIs, telemetry information, configurations. But with this Agentic AI support now, we can actually make changes to the network on behalf of the end user via a simple chat interface, an AI assistant, basically. And that really kind of saves a significant amount of time for the end user. I'm talking about from hours to minutes in some cases, or even longer, days to minutes. So that's the big change. Yeah.
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (01:15):
With so many Agentic AI solutions at MWC, what are the most important factors customers should evaluate to cut through the noise?
Andrew Baldock, HPE (01:23):
Absolutely. Well, I would say there are two key things that they would need to evaluate. One is, does your Agentic AI system have access to the relevant tools so that it can verify that the recommendations it's making and indeed the changes it's making in the network are successful. Without that, you can't trust your AI system. And the second thing I would say is flexibility. The ability to use, for example, our customers own LLMs and connect our Agentic AI system to their LMs, whether they be on premise or in the cloud. We all know how fast foundation models are evolving. Every day there seems to be a new LLM coming online. So we don't want to be the bottleneck that prevents our customers from adopting this incredible innovation of AI. That's it.
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (02:19):
In such a fast changing landscape, what clues can you share about the future role of AI in driving network operations?
Andrew Baldock, HPE (02:25):
It's really all about ... And in a sense, it's quite counterintuitive, but it's all about making more and more use cases entirely self-driven, which actually means not relying on an LM or an AI assistant. So the more we know about how our network behaves, the more patterns we recognize within our network, the more we can actually give to our AI ops engine, which can take care of everything on our behalf. So we don't even need to ask the AI assistant to fix a problem. It gets fixed for us. So that's kind of a little bit counterintuitive, but the future, in my view, is more and more AI doing the job, AI ops doing the job entirely on behalf of a user with no interaction whatsoever.
Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (03:21):
Andrew, thank you for your insights today.
Andrew Baldock, HPE (03:22):
Thank you.
Please note that video transcripts are provided for reference only – content may vary from the published video or contain inaccuracies.
Andrew Baldock, Senior Product Marketing Manager, HPE
Agentic AI is transforming routing operations from predictive insights to autonomous action. Andrew Baldock explains how HPE AI-Native Routing can analyse complex network issues, recommend improvements or fixes, and even execute changes automatically, reducing complex wireless access network tasks from hours to minutes and advancing the journey toward self-driving networks.
Recorded March 2026
Email Newsletters
Sign up to receive TelecomTV's top news and videos, plus exclusive subscriber-only content direct to your inbox.
