Kenmei ads

Operators are still working out how to make networks autonomous. Not one of the 50 tracked by TeckNexus lets its AI agents act alone. In this issue, we explain how Kenmei helps.

Key insights from our newsletter "The road to autonomous networks" 👇

Winter Storm Fern hit more than 30 states in January. Over a million people lost power. T-Mobile's self-organizing network didn't wait for anyone. It made tens of thousands of automated adjustments on its own → rerouting traffic, tuning signal, stretching battery and generator life. Among the customers hit: • 68% reconnected within the first hour • 98% within eight hours • sites kept alive for 250,000+ extra minutes We usually sell autonomy as an OPEX story. Fern tells a different one. It's about who stays connected when no human can react in time. Source: T-Mobile Newsroom.

For years, autonomous networks were pitched as a way to cut costs. TM Forum reframed them as a way to grow revenue. The thesis ↓ Operators start monetizing network quality, resilience and customer experience, not only trimming OPEX. If autonomy becomes a revenue lever, the metric changes. The main question becomes how much experience you can guarantee, measurably and repeatably. And you can only promise that if the data underneath holds. → 81% of operators aim for Level 4 by 2030. → Around 4% are there today. That gap isn't about technology. It's about data foundations. Source: TM Forum, "Scaling to AN Level 4 to unlock network value" (June 2026).

The agents are ready for the network. The data foundation underneath them mostly isn't. Four signals from June, in one picture.

Verizon made over 70 million network changes last year. Autonomously. Its AI agents now work the network 24/7. 1. They catch an anomaly, 2. spin up sub-agents to trace the source, 3. and close the issue in under two minutes. But the agents aren't the hard part. Underneath sits a common data layer → near-real-time telemetry, granular enough to read performance floor by floor inside a building. The agents only work because that layer came first. Data foundation, then agents, then autonomy. Not the other way around. Source: Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio, speaking to Light Reading.