104 FEATURE work that a team of engineers would have done before.” The key advantage lies in speed and consistency. “Agents respond immediately,” he says. “They don’t wait, they don’t get distracted. They compress all the latency that humans naturally introduce into these processes.” These agents operate within familiar tools such as Teams and email, allowing them to integrate into existing processes without requiring new interfaces or workflows. They can monitor network conditions, analyse incidents, coordinate responses and communicate with both internal teams and external partners, effectively taking on tasks that would previously have required continuous oversight from engineers. Despite this, the role of human engineers remains central. “Previously, the majority of engineering effort within operators was focused on acquiring data, analysing it, reviewing output and orchestrating workflows, while decisionmaking and approval accounted for a relatively small proportion of the overall workload,” says Billor. “With AI capable of orchestrating complex work across teams, analysing large volumes of data and applying organisational knowledge, human attention is now on execution oversight. This includes identifying and addressing gaps in AI performance, providing ongoing training and retaining responsibility for approving and carrying out high-risk or irreversible actions.” Having developed these capabilities within its own global network, Microsoft is now making them available to telecom operators through a framework designed to accelerate adoption. The approach provides a foundation that organisations can build on, combining “ Agents compress all the latency that humans naturally introduce into these processes” DENIZCAN BILLOR, MICROSOFT Photo: iStock/halbergman
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