AGENDA

Note: All times below are in U.S. Eastern Time

11:00 - 11:20 AM: Opening Keynote – A fireside chat with Raj Savoor, VP Network Analytics & Automation, AT&T

11:25 - 11:45 AM: Keynote – Invisible by design: Reimagining telecom operations in the AI-native era Gabriele Di Piazza, VP of Product Management, Blue Planet, a division of Ciena

AI-native operations are redefining the future of telecom, driving OSS far beyond traditional automation and siloed operational systems. This session explores the next evolution of OSS — not just through agentic AI, but through the emergence of an intelligent operational control layer that orchestrates across multiple intent domains, from service and network intent to business and customer outcomes. As OSS evolves into the cognitive center of telecom operations, attendees will gain insight into how AI-driven operational models, human–AI collaboration, and intent-based orchestration will transform the operator experience and accelerate the journey toward truly autonomous networks.

11:50 AM - 12:35 PM: Panel - Why AI breaks the old network playbook

AI is emerging as an essential tool for network optimization — enabling automated traffic management, predictive maintenance, dynamic resource allocation and self-healing operations that reduce cost and improve performance at scale. However, AI workloads are imposing new requirements on network infrastructure, such as demands for high-throughput data movement between distributed compute and storage nodes, ultra-low latency for inference at the edge, and high bandwidth to support training pipelines. Meeting those requirements means rethinking core architectural assumptions across transport, routing and orchestration layers. During this session, panelists examine both sides of the AI-network relationship — the technologies enabling AI-driven optimization and the infrastructure changes required to make the network ready for AI workloads now and in the future.

Moderator: Diana Goovaerts, Executive Editor, Fierce Network
Panelists: Petrit Nahi, Senior Member of the Technical Staff, CTO Office, Rakuten Mobile
Salim Koudiri, SVP, Field Engineering, T-Mobile
Ryan Asdourian, EVP and CMO at Lumen

12:35 - 1:00 PM: A fireside chat with Anil Guntupalli, SVP of Technology and Product Development, Verizon

1:00 - 1:20 PM: A fireside chat with Regan Ireland, Global Head of Pre-Sales Solution, Products and Digital Experiences, Telstra

1:20 - 1:50 PM: A fireside chat with Sid Nag, President and Chief Research Officer, Tekonyx, on the role of agentic in telecom networks

1:50 - 2:35 PM: Panel - Networks are the crown jewels of the AI economy

For years, telcos watched cloud platforms, streaming services and SaaS vendors drain value. But AI may be the moment they have been waiting for. The infrastructure demands of AI are fundamentally different from anything preceding and play directly to telco strengths. Delivering the data volumes required for inferencing, supporting IoT deployments and enabling physical AI at the edge all depend on low latency, high-throughput and always-on connectivity, where Tier-1 operators excel. Plus, telcos bring physical real estate, co-location facilities, distributed data  centers and deep operational expertise that hyperscalers and cloud providers cannot easily replicate. Together, these assets make communications service providers uniquely positioned to prosper in the AI economy. Panelists on this session will discuss how telcos can leverage network assets to become winners in the AI era.

Moderator: Elizabeth Coyne, Editor in Chief, Fierce Network
Panelists: Alan Jones, CTO, C-Spire
Sid Nag, President and Chief Research Officer, Tekonyx

2:40 - 3:25 PM: Panel - What's next? Designing networks for the full AI journey 

AI is not a single workload but an evolving spectrum that is reshaping both network demand and how telecom operators design and run their infrastructure. From large-scale model training to real-time edge inference and emerging agentic and physical AI systems, each phase introduces new performance requirements and increasingly dynamic traffic patterns. To keep pace, telcos must not only support these workloads but also embed AI into their own operations to automate planning, optimize traffic, and dynamically allocate resources. This session explores how operators can align AI-driven network operations with the infrastructure needed to enable customer AI workloads across core, edge, and access domains.

Moderator: Mitch Wagner, Chief Analyst, Fierce Network Research
Panelists: Célia Lamarche, VP, Applied AI & Operations Support, Bell Canada
Ed Fox, CTO, MetTel
Joda Schaumberg, Zayo’s SVP of Digital Infrastructure
Ahmed Abdelaziz, VP Automation and Transformation, Rakuten Symphony
Kailem Anderson, Vice President, Global Products & Delivery, Blue Planet

This virtual event includes a companion research report written by our Chief Analyst Mitch Wagner. You can download it here.