- Broadband operators' binding constraint is demographics, not technology — the workforce is aging out and not getting replaced fast enough, said Calix's Shane Eleniak
- Agentic AI is a force multiplier for existing staff, he said
- Also, agentic AI allows operators to customize services and marketing for individual subscribers
Operators' biggest problem today isn't technology — it's demographics, according to Shane Eleniak, Calix chief product officer. The engineers who built and run broadband infrastructure are approaching the end of their careers.
"It doesn't matter whether you're a small operator in Nebraska or you're Verizon. There's not enough people," Eleniak told Fierce. "Everybody that's working on this stuff looks like you and me. We've been at this for 35-36 years. All the smart people are going to age out over the next 10 years."
(Editor's note: Eleniak's LinkedIn profile shows he has indeed worked in the industry for at least 36 years. As for me, I'm in my prime.)
Calix's software agents address operator staffing shortages by multiplying the reach of the staff operators already have, running acquisition, loyalty, support and network operations workflows for each subscriber individually rather than by segment, Eleniak said. The value proposition is that operators add subscribers without adding headcount. Calix launched the capability with Google Cloud in October 2025 and said in February that about 500 customers were using it.
Calix One is designed to help operators pull together operations, marketing and customer solutions into a platform that leverages data operators already have, Teresa McGaughey, Calix's VP of global field and partner marketing, told Fierce in May.
Building subscriber loyalty
Beyond extending a dwindling workforce, Calix seeks to help operators build subscriber loyalty by removing friction — subscribers' petty annoyances trying to use broadband connectivity. Visiting grandchildren who have to be signed into guest Wi-Fi and parental controls. The requirements of working from home. Signing into Wi-Fi again at every hotel and airport. A two-day wait and an installer visit to activate service in a new apartment. Operators should be able to automatically identify weaker signals in a subscriber's home, and offer extenders before the subscriber even complains, Eleniak said.
Additionally, Calix is pitching agentic AI to broadband providers as a way to run existing workflows, tuned to each subscriber individually rather than to segments and campaigns.
"Agentic AI allows us to get down to a granularity of one," Eleniak said. Previously, operators' staff limitations meant they had to manage customers in large groups — "campaigns and cohorts" — but agentic AI allows operators to deliver individualized, personalized services and marketing.
Agentic AI extends workflows Calix has offered since 2019, including telemetry collection and a subscriber data view for marketing, operations and support, Eleniak said. These workflows include personalized offers for subscriber acquisition; loyalty, for nurturing, upsell, cross-sell and minimizing churn; and business efficiency in operators' internal operations.
Jobs apocalypse? What jobs apocalypse?
The labor shortage that Calix observes runs counter to conventional wisdom that AI will take nearly all the jobs and lead to massive unemployment, as predicted by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, UC Berkeley AI pioneer Stuart Russell and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, for example. Meanwhile, in the real world, for operators at least, the daily punch list keeps growing while the labor pool shrinks, Eleniak said.
This labor shortage is also constraining data center construction and networking. And recruiting talent is a problem for APAC telecom operators, though they lead their North American and European counterparts in implementing AI, a Google Cloud executive told Fierce.
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