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Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (00:04):
You are watching TelecomTV. We are joining from Future Net World 2024 in London. Now I'm delighted to be joined by Usman Javaid, Chief Products and Marketing Officer at Orange Business. Hi Usman, thank for joining us.
Usman Javaid, Orange (00:19):
Hi Yani. My pleasure.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (00:20):
So you had a panel discussion earlier today on the role of AI in the telco industry. What would you say is the most important advice you need to provide to the telco industry about this?
Usman Javaid, Orange (00:31):
Yeah, so I think first of all everybody believe that AI is going to have a phenomenal impact in terms of how we manage our operations and how we can create new business models. But I think at the same time people are cautious that it's going to take some time, but it's important to get started with the experimentation and that's what at Orange we are doing. So we have started on this AI journey for a long time ago and we are classifying that into two parts. What is what we do as everyday AI and what are the things that we need to do, which is more game changing every day, which is making us more efficient and more productive as an organization and game changing where we can create new business models and create more value for our enterprise customers.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (01:12):
So can you talk a bit more about the game changing ai? Probably this is the area where all of the telco industry is looking at at the
Usman Javaid, Orange (01:19):
Moment. Absolutely. So I think there are two things. The first thing is we need to think about AI as a new internet. And the reason I say this is because we need to really democratize access to AI for enterprises and that's what we are doing. So what we did, we launched a gen AI trusted gen AI platform, which is making the AI available to enterprises to consume and that is the biggest challenge the enterprise are facing. They want to get on the AI wave but they don't know how to get started and they don't know how to get started in a trusted and a responsible way. So what we did is we provide GPU as a service and LLM as a service as part of our trusted cloud platform for our enterprise customers. Which means that they can either bring their own large language model to the platform which is hosted in our premises, it's fully secure, and then they can consume the LLM and the GPU services or they can fine tune the model where we have partnered with a company called Lights On, which is an LLM provider, a French LLM provider.
(02:29):
And then they can use the LLM from lights on and fine tune that to their specific use cases. And I give you two examples of different enterprises that we have engaged in this software. The first example is Eons region, which is the metropolitan region of Paris, which is 12 million citizens and they want to create a copilot like experience for citizens so they can ask any questions that they have about the city and we are helping them to bring all the documents and the data and make available to the live language model so that the citizens can interact with the different departments of cons. The second example is a large utility customer in France, which is having a lot of field force and once the field force finished their job, they need to do a lot of tapping onto the tablets or some paperwork to complete the documentation to finish the assignment.
(03:23):
And what we are doing is we are creating a natural language interface into their phone so they can just talk to their phone and say, I have been on this job, I finished this job. And that automatically, automatically create a work completion report that is submitted to the workforce management system. So these are a few examples of how we are democratizing access to AI for enterprises. So that's the first part. The second part is as I said, as I said, AI is so the new internet, which means that you need to make sure whatever you offer has got GENAI and AI embedded in your portfolio. So for example, in Orange business we have a history of helping customers with their contact center solutions and now what we are doing is we are creating genai as part of those solutions. So those solutions are way more rich in terms of experience as they were previously.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (04:14):
You mentioned GPU as a service as well as LLM, as a service. Are these already commercially available and what do you see as a response from enterprise
Usman Javaid, Orange (04:22):
Customers? The response is enormous, right? A lot of enterprises who are really struggling to get started with the AI and gen ai now they're taking their first steps. We have already engaged a number of customers as I talk about EEF cons and the utility customers and we have some other retail customer, we have another customer for example in the retail and they want to understand their customer sentiments and they get a lot of data and feedback from their customer, but they want to really summarize that into some key actions and we helping that to do it. But I think what I really want to talk about is always we have seen that the small medium enterprises are left behind in all those technology waves and mostly the large enterprises benefit from that. And we have seen when it was the wave of mobility cloud, the small medium enterprises are always behind and we want to change that with AI and gen ai.
(05:12):
So what we are trying to do with this trusted gen AI platform, we are creating some package solutions for SMBs. For example, one of the common problems that SMBs face is document management and knowledge management. One employee takes almost four hours a week to find the right document and we are creating some solutions such as a document management solution with gen AI powered. So you can talk to the application and say I'm looking for an invoice for this particular customer for this month, and automatically the invoice pops up. So it saves them a lot of time in terms of doing their day-to-day jobs.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (05:48):
You're also using AI for coral reef restoration. Can you share a bit more about this?
Usman Javaid, Orange (05:52):
Yeah, that is my favorite example. So just to say a little of background on this, so we are working with a nonprofit organization called AKA and we have launched an initiative that's called Let's Revive. And if you know that 30% of the carbon emission in the world is actually consumed by the ocean and if the oceans are not healthy, we will not be able to consume that much carbon. And by the way, the oceans consume more carbon than actually all the forests in the world. So we work with Tanaka on this coral reef restoration project where historically Tanaka would employ a diver who would go deep in the ocean and take some pictures and come out to understand the health of the ocean. We changed that completely with technology and we are deploying underwater research stations with cameras. They have capability with AI to be able to do image classification and they are able to take the pictures of the coral, they are able to take the picture of different species, different type of fish, and based on that data which is real time connected through our IOT platform into our connectivity platform with hyperscaler.
(07:04):
In this case we're using Microsoft Azure to be able to do end-to-end analysis, the health of the ocean. And that is something that we are really proud of
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (07:14):
And it sounds very interesting indeed moving away from AI network, APIs are obviously a very big topic as well at the moment. Could you share some examples of how Orange is opening its network?
Usman Javaid, Orange (07:26):
I think it's very important. Then maybe we step back and think about our point of view with regards to the generations of technology. I think we have all talk about 5G and then there is sort of everyone has at the back of their mind, okay, what is six G and when it's coming and so on. We have taken a very different approach. We want to move away from this big bang generational approach of technology evolution to a continuous innovation approach, which is where we want to turn our technology into platforms and we want to offer Tesla like experience Tesla car-like experience where you have the best car but then you can deploy software in order to create new feature set within the platform. And that's what we're trying to do is to really ize our technology and then make sure that we can do small upgrades and there in order to offer the right experience.
(08:19):
So within that, as you become a platform play, it's very important to integrate your platform with the rest of the ecosystem, which is where I think your question about APIs comes in and you need to integrate on one side with all the network operators in the world, which is the open gateway is helping us to do. And at the same time, you need to integrate your ecosystem with the hyperscaler ecosystem so that you can open up your APIs to the developer community. So there are a number of use cases that we are developing. I think the more prominent one is using location information to be able to understand any frauds scenario. For example, in the banking sector or on the insurance sector. Maybe my favorite example is for the gaming users using network API, you are able to deploy an end-to-end network slice irrespective of which service provider that the mobile gaming user is using in order to provide a specific treatment and low latency experience to the gaming user in order to have the best gaming experience.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (09:20):
And you mentioned six G, do you think the industry is ready for that conversation?
Usman Javaid, Orange (09:24):
Well, I think industry is ready but with a different approach. I think wind should come out of this big bag approach as I talk about. But rather we should be ready to ize our technology. And when I say platformized actually it means three layers. The first layer is the automation. We need to make sure that we can create end-to-end automation in our network so we can adopt our network to the needs of the application. The second layer is the software layer. We need to make sure that we can deploy software on the fly in the network for specific needs of the consumers and the enterprises. And the third is the digital experience layer. And I give you the same example of the gaming user. For example, if you're a gaming user, how about imagine you get a popup to say, we noticed that you've been using a lot of gaming experience on our network, we can offer you this new service which is based on network being intuitive to understand your experience. And then based on that we give you a network slice, which is a software deployed in the network to create a new experience for you. And that is only possible for me. This is six G and we haven't talked about any radio upgrades yet. Right? So this six G is about value creation and value creation through a platform and open ecosystem approach.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (10:44):
Thank you very much for speaking with us.
Usman Javaid, Orange (10:45):
Thanks Yani. It was my pleasure. Thank you.
You are watching TelecomTV. We are joining from Future Net World 2024 in London. Now I'm delighted to be joined by Usman Javaid, Chief Products and Marketing Officer at Orange Business. Hi Usman, thank for joining us.
Usman Javaid, Orange (00:19):
Hi Yani. My pleasure.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (00:20):
So you had a panel discussion earlier today on the role of AI in the telco industry. What would you say is the most important advice you need to provide to the telco industry about this?
Usman Javaid, Orange (00:31):
Yeah, so I think first of all everybody believe that AI is going to have a phenomenal impact in terms of how we manage our operations and how we can create new business models. But I think at the same time people are cautious that it's going to take some time, but it's important to get started with the experimentation and that's what at Orange we are doing. So we have started on this AI journey for a long time ago and we are classifying that into two parts. What is what we do as everyday AI and what are the things that we need to do, which is more game changing every day, which is making us more efficient and more productive as an organization and game changing where we can create new business models and create more value for our enterprise customers.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (01:12):
So can you talk a bit more about the game changing ai? Probably this is the area where all of the telco industry is looking at at the
Usman Javaid, Orange (01:19):
Moment. Absolutely. So I think there are two things. The first thing is we need to think about AI as a new internet. And the reason I say this is because we need to really democratize access to AI for enterprises and that's what we are doing. So what we did, we launched a gen AI trusted gen AI platform, which is making the AI available to enterprises to consume and that is the biggest challenge the enterprise are facing. They want to get on the AI wave but they don't know how to get started and they don't know how to get started in a trusted and a responsible way. So what we did is we provide GPU as a service and LLM as a service as part of our trusted cloud platform for our enterprise customers. Which means that they can either bring their own large language model to the platform which is hosted in our premises, it's fully secure, and then they can consume the LLM and the GPU services or they can fine tune the model where we have partnered with a company called Lights On, which is an LLM provider, a French LLM provider.
(02:29):
And then they can use the LLM from lights on and fine tune that to their specific use cases. And I give you two examples of different enterprises that we have engaged in this software. The first example is Eons region, which is the metropolitan region of Paris, which is 12 million citizens and they want to create a copilot like experience for citizens so they can ask any questions that they have about the city and we are helping them to bring all the documents and the data and make available to the live language model so that the citizens can interact with the different departments of cons. The second example is a large utility customer in France, which is having a lot of field force and once the field force finished their job, they need to do a lot of tapping onto the tablets or some paperwork to complete the documentation to finish the assignment.
(03:23):
And what we are doing is we are creating a natural language interface into their phone so they can just talk to their phone and say, I have been on this job, I finished this job. And that automatically, automatically create a work completion report that is submitted to the workforce management system. So these are a few examples of how we are democratizing access to AI for enterprises. So that's the first part. The second part is as I said, as I said, AI is so the new internet, which means that you need to make sure whatever you offer has got GENAI and AI embedded in your portfolio. So for example, in Orange business we have a history of helping customers with their contact center solutions and now what we are doing is we are creating genai as part of those solutions. So those solutions are way more rich in terms of experience as they were previously.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (04:14):
You mentioned GPU as a service as well as LLM, as a service. Are these already commercially available and what do you see as a response from enterprise
Usman Javaid, Orange (04:22):
Customers? The response is enormous, right? A lot of enterprises who are really struggling to get started with the AI and gen ai now they're taking their first steps. We have already engaged a number of customers as I talk about EEF cons and the utility customers and we have some other retail customer, we have another customer for example in the retail and they want to understand their customer sentiments and they get a lot of data and feedback from their customer, but they want to really summarize that into some key actions and we helping that to do it. But I think what I really want to talk about is always we have seen that the small medium enterprises are left behind in all those technology waves and mostly the large enterprises benefit from that. And we have seen when it was the wave of mobility cloud, the small medium enterprises are always behind and we want to change that with AI and gen ai.
(05:12):
So what we are trying to do with this trusted gen AI platform, we are creating some package solutions for SMBs. For example, one of the common problems that SMBs face is document management and knowledge management. One employee takes almost four hours a week to find the right document and we are creating some solutions such as a document management solution with gen AI powered. So you can talk to the application and say I'm looking for an invoice for this particular customer for this month, and automatically the invoice pops up. So it saves them a lot of time in terms of doing their day-to-day jobs.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (05:48):
You're also using AI for coral reef restoration. Can you share a bit more about this?
Usman Javaid, Orange (05:52):
Yeah, that is my favorite example. So just to say a little of background on this, so we are working with a nonprofit organization called AKA and we have launched an initiative that's called Let's Revive. And if you know that 30% of the carbon emission in the world is actually consumed by the ocean and if the oceans are not healthy, we will not be able to consume that much carbon. And by the way, the oceans consume more carbon than actually all the forests in the world. So we work with Tanaka on this coral reef restoration project where historically Tanaka would employ a diver who would go deep in the ocean and take some pictures and come out to understand the health of the ocean. We changed that completely with technology and we are deploying underwater research stations with cameras. They have capability with AI to be able to do image classification and they are able to take the pictures of the coral, they are able to take the picture of different species, different type of fish, and based on that data which is real time connected through our IOT platform into our connectivity platform with hyperscaler.
(07:04):
In this case we're using Microsoft Azure to be able to do end-to-end analysis, the health of the ocean. And that is something that we are really proud of
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (07:14):
And it sounds very interesting indeed moving away from AI network, APIs are obviously a very big topic as well at the moment. Could you share some examples of how Orange is opening its network?
Usman Javaid, Orange (07:26):
I think it's very important. Then maybe we step back and think about our point of view with regards to the generations of technology. I think we have all talk about 5G and then there is sort of everyone has at the back of their mind, okay, what is six G and when it's coming and so on. We have taken a very different approach. We want to move away from this big bang generational approach of technology evolution to a continuous innovation approach, which is where we want to turn our technology into platforms and we want to offer Tesla like experience Tesla car-like experience where you have the best car but then you can deploy software in order to create new feature set within the platform. And that's what we're trying to do is to really ize our technology and then make sure that we can do small upgrades and there in order to offer the right experience.
(08:19):
So within that, as you become a platform play, it's very important to integrate your platform with the rest of the ecosystem, which is where I think your question about APIs comes in and you need to integrate on one side with all the network operators in the world, which is the open gateway is helping us to do. And at the same time, you need to integrate your ecosystem with the hyperscaler ecosystem so that you can open up your APIs to the developer community. So there are a number of use cases that we are developing. I think the more prominent one is using location information to be able to understand any frauds scenario. For example, in the banking sector or on the insurance sector. Maybe my favorite example is for the gaming users using network API, you are able to deploy an end-to-end network slice irrespective of which service provider that the mobile gaming user is using in order to provide a specific treatment and low latency experience to the gaming user in order to have the best gaming experience.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (09:20):
And you mentioned six G, do you think the industry is ready for that conversation?
Usman Javaid, Orange (09:24):
Well, I think industry is ready but with a different approach. I think wind should come out of this big bag approach as I talk about. But rather we should be ready to ize our technology. And when I say platformized actually it means three layers. The first layer is the automation. We need to make sure that we can create end-to-end automation in our network so we can adopt our network to the needs of the application. The second layer is the software layer. We need to make sure that we can deploy software on the fly in the network for specific needs of the consumers and the enterprises. And the third is the digital experience layer. And I give you the same example of the gaming user. For example, if you're a gaming user, how about imagine you get a popup to say, we noticed that you've been using a lot of gaming experience on our network, we can offer you this new service which is based on network being intuitive to understand your experience. And then based on that we give you a network slice, which is a software deployed in the network to create a new experience for you. And that is only possible for me. This is six G and we haven't talked about any radio upgrades yet. Right? So this six G is about value creation and value creation through a platform and open ecosystem approach.
Yani Boyadzhieva, TelecomTV (10:44):
Thank you very much for speaking with us.
Usman Javaid, Orange (10:45):
Thanks Yani. It was my pleasure. Thank you.
Please note that video transcripts are provided for reference only – content may vary from the published video or contain inaccuracies.
Usman Javaid, Chief Product Officer, Orange Business
During the FutureNet World 2024 event in London, TelecomTV caught up with Usman Javaid, chief products and marketing officer at Orange Business, to hear why he believes AI will be ‘game-changing’ for the industry and what enterprise solutions the telco has for this domain, including its trusted generative AI (GenAI) platform. He also discusses the French operator’s open network API developments and shares his views on how prepared the sector is for the 6G era.
Recorded April 2024
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