Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (00:07):
Hi, Tony Poulos here for TelecomTV at MWC 2026 in Barcelona. Today I have with me Bruce McClelland, who is the President, CEO, and Director of Ribbon Communications. Bruce, welcome. It's great to catch up again. Firstly, AI has become the key topic at MWC and elsewhere. From your vantage point, what's the biggest shift you're seeing in how operators are approaching AI and automation at this particular time?

Bruce McClelland, Ribbon Communications (00:35):
Well, it is obviously the theme of the show. I don't think there's a single supplier here that's not talking about AI, and there's a good reason for it. I saw a recent study by NVIDIA that talked about the use of AI now with operators, and I think over 90% of operators now are leveraging AI in different ways. There are a number of really key themes around network automation, becoming more efficient in how to manage the networks, driving more revenue, and ultimately improving efficiency of the operation. So there are good reasons why AI has become a key theme here, and we see it with all of our customers, both on the service provider as well as the enterprise side. And I think it's only going to grow. I think almost one hundred percent of our customers are planning to increase their investment in AI in the coming 12 months.

(01:27):
So it's a big theme.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (01:28):
Given the shift towards AI-driven automation, where does Ribbon uniquely help operators cut through the multi-vendor, multi-layer complexity? And what's been most compelling to customers so far?

Bruce McClelland, Ribbon Communications (01:40):
Yeah, so we really want to simplify it for our customers, and we have really three key themes that we're focused on from an AI perspective. One that we're really highlighting here at the show is a new platform we call Acumen, which really brings together a lot of the automation and analytics capabilities we have as a company, and then connects it into an agentic world. And that's a big shift. So we're not just talking about prompts and getting responses. We're now talking about creating automation that can autonomously help our customers manage their network. So that's a big first step. Secondly, for us, we see a really significant opportunity with a lot of different AI platforms and the interface between the platform and the user becoming more voice-centric. And so our capabilities around connecting voice and enabling voice into the AI world, I think, is a really big theme and a big growth area for us.

(02:33):
The third area is obviously in the picks and shovels portions of building AI data centres and the need for more and more connectivity. And we brought to market over the last year a set of new products that really focus on that data centre optimisation, data centre interconnect. So three big themes for us, but really all driven by AI.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (02:52):
And for operators looking for quick wins, where should they start on the path to autonomous networks?

Bruce McClelland, Ribbon Communications (02:59):
I talk to a lot of customers and encourage them to get started. It doesn't really matter what your starting point is, whether you've already got a sophisticated back office or you're starting really with spreadsheets and looking for more automation. There are a lot of ways to get started. There are a lot of different ways to leverage AI and whether you want to run things in a public cloud environment or on-premise in a private cloud environment. There are permutations of our solutions that can be used in a variety of different ways. So the key is getting started. I do think it's really important that this is driven as a top-down initiative within companies. There's got to really be a belief that this is a key part of the strategy for the corporation. It's not just one portion of the network, you really need to think holistically. The key is getting started.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (03:48):
And what are you showcasing here at MWC that makes the automation story tangible?

Bruce McClelland, Ribbon Communications (03:54):
Yeah. So I think we've had several things we're highlighting this week. In fact, I think our biggest announcement we did on Monday with AWS, launching a new partnership with them. We've been working with them for probably 10 years now to move network loads into a public cloud environment. And frankly, it was good we did during COVID. We had a number of customers that needed to dramatically increase capacity quickly, and they were able to do that by moving workloads into public cloud. But that's now evolved a lot over the last seven or eight years. The announcement we had this week is a pretty deep collaboration with AWS to basically take telco voice carrier-grade capabilities and put that into a public cloud environment. So that's one of the big areas we were highlighting this week. The new Acumen platform I just mentioned and the new capabilities there, it's really been the highlight of the show.

(04:44):
We have live demonstrations we're doing in the booth, and frankly, we need more booth space. We just don't have enough room for what's going on there. And then the third area we're focused on is the data centre portion of our business and some of the new products that we've launched there. So it's been a busy week and we've got a busy day ahead.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (05:00):
Bruce, thanks so much for being with me today. Thank you.

Bruce McClelland, Ribbon Communications (05:04):
Perfect. Thank you. Good to see you.