In The Arena by TechArena - The Future of AI and the Network with GlobalLogic SVP Sameer Tikoo

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

TechArena’s host Allyson Klein reprises conversation at MWC24 with a talk with GlobalLogic’s SVP of Global Communication Services Business, Sameer Tikoo, about the future of AI in the network and how his firm is building solutions that meet swiftly evolving customer demands.

Welcome to the Tech Arena, featuring authentic discussions between tech's leading innovators and our host, Allison Klein. Now let's step into the arena. Tech Arena, my name is Alison Klein, and today I am so excited to be joined by Samir Taku, Senior Vice President at GlobalLogic. Welcome to the show, Samir. Thank you, Alison. Pleasure to be here. So, Samir, this is the first time that you are on the show and GlobalLogic is on the show. So, why don't we just start with introductions about Global Logic, your role in the industry and your role at the company.

Yeah, Global Logic is a leader in product engineering services. We have been in existence for almost 24 years now. And the way I like to describe is in the first decade of our existence, we were playing a role of outsourced product engineering company for a lot of tech ISVs. That's how we evolved. In the decade, I would say, from 2010 onwards,

is when we started the wave of design-led digital engineering services and started working and diversifying into multiple verticals like communications, media, technology, automotive, retail, and healthcare. And then the third decade, which is AI-enabled decade, I would say, and the inflection point in our journey was when we got acquired by Hitachi in March of 2021. And now we are joining the forces

with the Hitachi team, being the parent and combining the prowess of global logics and digital, which is IT technology, with Hitachi's OT operational technologies to help our customers on their next wave of journey. I'm so glad that you brought up AI because that's one of the central focuses of our conversation today.

Both of us were at MWC last week and AI seemed to have pervaded every single conversation. You have really painted yourself in the center of the story. What do you see as the AI opportunity in this space? And how is GlobalLogic preparing to take advantage of it? Yeah, fantastic. I think, Alison, look, last week at the MWC, there was AI was buzzing everywhere, right? And it's kind of expected,

but at the same time, the kind of attention we saw at MWC, it was unparalleled. And from our vantage point and what we do in this space, I think we are very well geared for this AI journey. Our foundations are basically

from the data science engineering and machine learning and AI, which we have been doing much before AI and Gen AI became a buzzword. And from our positioning perspective, Global Logic unveiled the AI Studio of Excellence at MWC. So as part of that studio, we are offering a set of tools, services,

digital accelerators, as well as a model whereby we can co-create some of these use cases for our customers, especially the telco customers. And what lends credibility to this is we are already working on a platform of platforms for our parent company. A lot of work has already been done in that regard, and which actually encapsulates a lot of large language models, public LLMs, which are already available, and then helps in orchestrating and developing and defining custom use cases for respective industries. So we are going to leverage that as a foundational platform. And on top of that, leverage the communications and media knowledge that we have been in the industry

for the last 20, 25 years, working on that and customize that to align it with our customers' use cases and propel the journey forward. Now, I know that you've been in this space watching the journey and engaging in the journey from taking networks from single function boxes to virtualized and software defined. And obviously that was sped up with the implementation of 5G. How does this foundation help with turning on AI capability and in some ways autonomous connectivity? Yes, I'm glad, Alison, that you brought up this point because it's going to be increasingly relevant and contextual because we've already seen that 5G deployments, they picked up pace and, you know, we are now talking about 5G advanced and we're talking about 6G, right? And as these networks have gained momentum and pace, we are also leaning more and more towards developing self-organized networks, autonomous networks.

And I believe that AI will play a pivotal role in that. studio of excellence that I talked about, one of the core use cases for telecom, along with the customer experience and service operations, is going to be on the autonomous networks. And where we believe that the combination of machine learning, AI can help us predict network outages. They can help us detect anomalies in the network. We can also leverage AI to help us on the cell network interference patterns and provide a seamless coverage as well as reduce the operational costs for the telcos. I'm so glad that you brought up that use case. It's one of the ones that has been in the forefront as I've considered how is AI going to be implemented in this space. From your conversations at MWC, have you heard telco interest in adoption in that area? And are there any other use cases that you've heard in your conversations that seem likely to be the first integration points? Yeah, Alison, I think

during the MWC, as well as outside of the MWC, we are having several conversations with our customers on these use cases. And in fact, they have been curated with the inputs from the customer. And the other couple of use cases which have garnered a lot of mindshare and priority have been around the customer experience. The whole customer experience for a telco,

which needs to be re-imagined. And there we see a lot of value, which can be added. And this goes from, you know, the process you start from, in fact, order to fulfillment cycle, we call it, right? So if I am a consumer of services from a telco, and I want to buy a new service, then what's my experience like? And can I do that in a frictionless manner as much as possible? And it starts with the creation of these intelligent chatbots, right? Now, we have had chatbots for a while, but the experience was not so frictionless. So that's where the AI will

help and make these chatbots intelligent. And from an order processing time perspective, from an order completion perspective, I think there are opportunities to help improve the customer experience there and make it an all digital seamless experience using the AI. That is one of the top any issue that you are seeing, for instance, from a network coverage perspective, in your home from a Wi-Fi network perspective. So you start actually calling or addressing these challenges using a chatbot or calling into a customer service call center, right? So how is that experience and how can you reduce the time that a person has to hold for getting a customer agent? How is the customer agent equipped before actually serving the customer? Does the customer agent have a 360 degree view of the data? And that is where I think AI is going to play a huge role.

We already have a lot of data which is sitting within the telcos. I often say that telcos are actually sitting on a much bigger data pile than Google or others, right? And I believe that there's a lot of capability to monetize that data and using AI. And I believe that one of those use cases is going to be around the service operations. And when a customer agent has a 360-degree view of the data, they are going to effectively serve the customers.

I think that's a really good point. I mean, telcos are sitting on so much treasure troves of data to introduce new revenue streams like new service offerings. And I can't wait to see how they tap this technology. And, you know, I think that one of the things that comes to mind is anytime you come to this moment in the industry, you know that there are technical gaps from the vision of what we see on the far horizon and where we need to go and where we need to wade through to actually deliver solutions. How do you see those technical gaps? And what is Global Logic helping to bridge in terms of these gaps?

Yeah, I think, Alison, from my perspective, I think there are a lot of gaps which we see in terms of connecting the dots within the telco ecosystem. And especially if you look at there's already been a lot of work done. There's a lot of plumbing being done. There's a lot of work done in creating these data lakes. And now it's a matter of connecting these lakes together, making sense of that data, monetizing data. And that could be essentially used for creating new revenue generating services as well.

And that is where I think a lot of innovation will come in. Probably in phase one, we will leverage AI and Gen AI for the use cases that I mentioned around service operations, customer experience, and autonomous networks. But I believe that telco as an industry needs to leverage AI and Gen AI more for new revenue generating services. And that is where overall as an industry,

we have been lacking, but this could be an inflection point for the industry itself. And for instance, to exemplify, a telco can offer insurance services. Telco can offer travel insurance. For instance, telcos have the knowledge about who's going where,

when are they going, where are they going, what are they doing, right? It's a matter of connecting these dots and providing these new services. So I think travel insurance, roaming services, recreation services, when somebody is traveling, that could be another one. My favorite one is education services, which could be offered because telcos have a huge base. Like if you talk about top telcos here in North America itself, they have 100 million customers, right? So there's a huge potential upside if you start offering new revenue generating services, let's say in the education sector.

Of course, it requires working together with some of these ad tech platform companies. But I feel like there is an opportunity to start new revenue generating services in this market with the advent of technologies like AI, which are going to help us uncover a lot of relevant data. Now, I know that you talked to a lot of people at MWC last week. I mean, there was 105,000 people at the conference,

so there were plenty to choose from, but I know that it's a very meeting-intent conference. What do you see from the rest of the industry to know that we're on track? And what can we expect from Global Logic in the months ahead in terms of. And there's a lot of hype, which is still out there. Last year was more about working on some quick prototypes, experimenting a lot of stuff, failing fast and discovering what could be relevant and contextual. But I think this year we are going to see more proof of values,

more MVPs and real products, you know, which will start shaping up, right? And as we mature in this journey, like in any other technology disruption previously, whether it was the mobile revolution or the computers, the desktop revolution before that, right? I believe that there will be an inflection point in this journey. And maybe it's down the line, two years, three years, five years, who knows? But it will come at some point

and there will be more and more AI first projects and products which will be developed. And from a telecom industry perspective, I think from a telco to a techco journey, from a telco to a digital telco journey, we will now see that next phase shift from a digital telco to a native AI telco. That's fantastic. Samira, it's been lovely having you on the show. I learned a lot and I would love to have you back sometime as we continue to track AI's integration into the network and edge. I know that we've probably also sparked some interest in our listeners to keep following Global Logic and engage your team.

Where can they engage to find out more about the solutions discussed today and connect with you and your team? Yeah, listen. So obviously the first point for us is the GlobalLogic website. You can also find us on social networks, LinkedIn, right? And if there are any queries, you can also email us. So we are available on all the public forums and we have our corporate communications, we have the marketing team here. So we can be reached across multiple channels. Thanks so much for the time today. And I can't wait to hear more about Global Logic as we head further into 2024.

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