Building the AI-Powered Telco: Andy Markus, CDO, AT&T

Andy Markus, AT&T’s Chief Data Officer, has articulated a transformative vision for “Building the AI-Powered Telco,” which centers on integrating data and artificial intelligence (AI) into the core fabric of AT&T’s operations to enhance efficiency, improve customer experiences, and drive innovation.

This vision, as expressed through various articles and statements, reflects a strategic shift toward leveraging AI at scale to modernize the telecommunications industry. Below is a detailed description of this vision based on Markus’s insights and AT&T’s initiatives.

Core Pillars of the Vision

Integration of Data and AI as a Business Foundation

Markus envisions AI not as a supplementary tool but as a fundamental component of how AT&T operates. He has emphasized the goal of “truly integrating data and AI into the core fabric of how we run the business.” This involves harnessing AT&T’s massive data flows—over 737 petabytes daily as of recent reports—to power AI-driven decision-making across all levels of the organization.

The aim is to transition AT&T into a data-first company where AI enhances operational efficiency, customer service, and network performance.

Democratization of Data and AI Tools

A key aspect of Markus’s vision is making data and AI accessible to all employees, not just data scientists or technical experts.

He describes this as the “democratization” of data and AI, achieved through platforms like the centralized data intelligence platform and the AI Feature Store, developed in collaboration with H2O.ai. These tools provide a single entry point to AT&T’s 160+ million data assets, enabling employees to discover, share, and reuse AI building blocks. This empowers business leaders and staff to make data-driven decisions, accelerating innovation and reducing time-to-market for new solutions.

Scaling AI for Operational Excellence

Markus’s vision includes deploying AI at scale to tackle complex operational challenges. Examples include predictive AI models that analyze 52 million network records and 1.2 trillion daily alerts to prevent outages, AI-driven robocall filtering that processes billions of records daily, and fraud management tools that evaluate millions of transactions in milliseconds.

These use cases demonstrate how AI can optimize network planning, enhance customer care, and protect both customers and the network, positioning AI as “table stakes” for running an efficient telecom business.

Advancement Through Generative AI (GenAI)

Markus sees generative AI as a game-changer, akin to the advent of smartphones or PCs. AT&T’s Ask AT&T platform, powered by GenAI and rolled out to 65,000 employees, exemplifies this focus. It accelerates tasks like software development (with efficiency gains of 30% or more), vulnerability remediation, and data analysis by allowing natural language queries to unlock insights from vast datasets.

Markus predicts GenAI will become central to everyday tasks—both within AT&T and for customers—such as planning, communication, and managing business interactions, while also preparing the network for the resulting data traffic surge.

Autonomous Agents for Complex Workflows

Looking to the future, Markus envisions autonomous agents—termed “autonomous assistants” at AT&T—as integral to solving complex business problems.

These agents, powered by large and small language models, assist employees by performing tasks like fraud detection, network optimization, and software development. A notable innovation is the use of “master agents” that orchestrate multiple specialized assistants, freeing human employees to focus on higher-level challenges while maintaining oversight.

Enabling Infrastructure and Culture

• Unified Data Ecosystem: Markus emphasizes a “single source of truth” approach, ensuring all parts of AT&T use consistent platforms, tools, and databases. The AI Feature Store and collaborations with tech leaders like Databricks, NVIDIA, and Microsoft support this by providing reusable, production-ready machine learning features.
• Responsible AI: AT&T prioritizes ethical AI deployment through tools like SIFT (System for the Integration of Fairness and Transparency in AI), which detects and mitigates bias across all models, ensuring fairness and transparency.
• Cultural Transformation: Markus evangelizes AI’s potential to the C-suite and broader workforce, fostering a culture of innovation and data literacy. This top-down and bottom-up approach ensures widespread adoption and alignment with business goals.

Impact and Future Outlook

Markus believes this AI-powered transformation will position AT&T to meet next-generation challenges, such as handling the exponential data demands of GenAI and agentic AI applications. He anticipates a future where autonomous assistants are ubiquitous, enhancing employee productivity and customer service, while the network scales to support a 5,166% data increase since 2007.

Beyond AT&T, Markus’s vision extends to shaping the broader AI and telecom community through partnerships, academic programs like the Data Science Scholars Program with Southern Methodist University, and contributions to industry standards.

In summary, Andy Markus’s vision for “Building the AI-Powered Telco” is a holistic strategy to embed AI into AT&T’s DNA, democratize its capabilities, and leverage it for operational excellence and innovation. By combining cutting-edge technology, a unified data strategy, and a forward-looking approach to GenAI and autonomous agents, Markus aims to redefine AT&T as a leader in the AI-driven telecom landscape.