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Anita Döhler, NGMN Alliance (00:10):
So the speech today is about agentic AI for autonomous networks. What I will explain here, everything is contributed by our membership. We are an operator-driven industry alliance. We have vendors and academic institutes also in NGMN. I'm very, very happy that 6G was mentioned already in the morning by Diane and others. So our focus topic is 6G. That's why if you look at the logo, you will see that the circle has a 6G gradient just as a side effect here. And we work also on sustainable AI on green future networks, other sustainability topics, smart antennas, and of course, everything related to what is needed to move ahead to autonomous networks. We are cooperating with other organisations, so of course we are not duplicating what other organisations are producing. When it comes to agentic AI, we took a holistic approach. So first of all, AI doesn't need 6G, but moving forward, we need to take care that the 6G or the next generation network is prepared for agentic AI and based on native AI capabilities.
(01:47):
This is why we published beginning of the year a document called "AI Search and Its Impact on 6G." Later, we looked into what does it need to embrace agentic AI for operating models? And just recently we published the topic, what I will explain now, agentic AI for autonomous networks. So the team which was tackling this topic was consisting out of operators led by Vodafone and China Mobile, but also other operators contributing actively and five vendors. So this is a good example where actually collaboration can work. And the objective was to analyse whether there are any gaps and what is needed basically in a first sense to provide input to 3GPP's meeting, which happened back in August. It is clear that agentic AI is the path to the TM Forum level four of autonomous networks. And the team selected three, what they called high value use cases.
(03:09):
So fault management, RAN optimisation and service assurance. And they were analysing what actually is needed looking at each specific use case to make agentic AI happen. There were a few findings, of course, related to architecture topics, to the hierarchy, to the role of digital twins for validation purposes, but also the, let's say, fact that a lot of traditional tools are already used for network automation and those tools, they should not be thrown away. So for instance, machine learning algorithms which are in place running well. So the agents, they should ideally make reuse of the existing running tools. And the finding was that actually it needs a telecom grade harness. It's not sufficient to have intelligence models or agents. So it needs six capability pillars, which you see on the slide to make it happen that we can generate trust in the system.
(04:34):
Further, the team analysed all the different features and requirements. And I will not speak about those features because you can download the document. It's really a worthwhile reading. There was a lot of takeaways, but the main finding was that actually 10 organisations or even more are working at the moment on the topics which came out of the analysis. Naturally TM Forum covers a lot. I know the TM Forum colleagues are also here, but also other organisations are working on specific topics. And the conclusion was that if we as an industry do not manage to collaborate and to avoid fragmentation, we will end up with fragmentation.
(05:33):
In detail, they came up with 12 areas where we have as an industry currently a risk of fragmentation. And naturally the finding is we need a more systematic approach to collaboration between organisations. It needs a telecom grade zero trust agent ecosystem and other capabilities where this coordination of standardisation is needed. And just also to mention, you saw the list of organisations. It is not only about the so-called SDOs, so standard development organisations. There are also other industry alliances and also open source communities. So what the team of NGMN members is suggesting is that we focus on those six pillars in the context of systematic collaboration. So what do we do in NGMN? Of course, we continue our work. Just today we published another input related to 6G migration options, but we also started just now in the framework of our 6G work, a project called Network for Agentic AI, where we will continue with the entire membership to analyse use cases and what does it need for the architecture requirements and for other capabilities in the network to prepare our networks for agentic AI.
(07:23):
With this, I am at the end of the presentation.
Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (07:28):
Thanks so much. Come and join us.
So the speech today is about agentic AI for autonomous networks. What I will explain here, everything is contributed by our membership. We are an operator-driven industry alliance. We have vendors and academic institutes also in NGMN. I'm very, very happy that 6G was mentioned already in the morning by Diane and others. So our focus topic is 6G. That's why if you look at the logo, you will see that the circle has a 6G gradient just as a side effect here. And we work also on sustainable AI on green future networks, other sustainability topics, smart antennas, and of course, everything related to what is needed to move ahead to autonomous networks. We are cooperating with other organisations, so of course we are not duplicating what other organisations are producing. When it comes to agentic AI, we took a holistic approach. So first of all, AI doesn't need 6G, but moving forward, we need to take care that the 6G or the next generation network is prepared for agentic AI and based on native AI capabilities.
(01:47):
This is why we published beginning of the year a document called "AI Search and Its Impact on 6G." Later, we looked into what does it need to embrace agentic AI for operating models? And just recently we published the topic, what I will explain now, agentic AI for autonomous networks. So the team which was tackling this topic was consisting out of operators led by Vodafone and China Mobile, but also other operators contributing actively and five vendors. So this is a good example where actually collaboration can work. And the objective was to analyse whether there are any gaps and what is needed basically in a first sense to provide input to 3GPP's meeting, which happened back in August. It is clear that agentic AI is the path to the TM Forum level four of autonomous networks. And the team selected three, what they called high value use cases.
(03:09):
So fault management, RAN optimisation and service assurance. And they were analysing what actually is needed looking at each specific use case to make agentic AI happen. There were a few findings, of course, related to architecture topics, to the hierarchy, to the role of digital twins for validation purposes, but also the, let's say, fact that a lot of traditional tools are already used for network automation and those tools, they should not be thrown away. So for instance, machine learning algorithms which are in place running well. So the agents, they should ideally make reuse of the existing running tools. And the finding was that actually it needs a telecom grade harness. It's not sufficient to have intelligence models or agents. So it needs six capability pillars, which you see on the slide to make it happen that we can generate trust in the system.
(04:34):
Further, the team analysed all the different features and requirements. And I will not speak about those features because you can download the document. It's really a worthwhile reading. There was a lot of takeaways, but the main finding was that actually 10 organisations or even more are working at the moment on the topics which came out of the analysis. Naturally TM Forum covers a lot. I know the TM Forum colleagues are also here, but also other organisations are working on specific topics. And the conclusion was that if we as an industry do not manage to collaborate and to avoid fragmentation, we will end up with fragmentation.
(05:33):
In detail, they came up with 12 areas where we have as an industry currently a risk of fragmentation. And naturally the finding is we need a more systematic approach to collaboration between organisations. It needs a telecom grade zero trust agent ecosystem and other capabilities where this coordination of standardisation is needed. And just also to mention, you saw the list of organisations. It is not only about the so-called SDOs, so standard development organisations. There are also other industry alliances and also open source communities. So what the team of NGMN members is suggesting is that we focus on those six pillars in the context of systematic collaboration. So what do we do in NGMN? Of course, we continue our work. Just today we published another input related to 6G migration options, but we also started just now in the framework of our 6G work, a project called Network for Agentic AI, where we will continue with the entire membership to analyse use cases and what does it need for the architecture requirements and for other capabilities in the network to prepare our networks for agentic AI.
(07:23):
With this, I am at the end of the presentation.
Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (07:28):
Thanks so much. Come and join us.
Please note that video transcripts are provided for reference only – content may vary from the published video or contain inaccuracies.
Anita Döhler, Chief Executive Officer, NGMN Alliance
At the AI-Native Telco Forum 2026, Anita Döhler, CEO of the NGMN Alliance, discussed the operator-led work on agentic AI for autonomous networks, why the next-generation network must be prepared for native AI, the six capability pillars needed for a telecom-grade harness, the high-value use cases of fault management, RAN optimisation and service assurance, and the risk of industry fragmentation across standards bodies, alliances and open-source communities.
Broadcast live Sept 2026
