Next Signal – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast overview
This podcast explores where AI is already delivering measurable ROI for telecom operators, with a focus on customer care, churn reduction, network operations, field service, and fraud detection. Moderated by Will Gibson, Vice‑President of Maplewave, the conversation features Jean‑Pierre Lacroix, President of SLD, and Damien Clothier, a leading AI consultant, who will walk through practical use cases, implementation roadmaps, and governance considerations tailored to telecom leaders.

Link to blog:
https://phoenixai.solutions/insights/guides/ai-for-telecom-operators

What the audience will learn

• Why telecom is one of the highest-ROI sectors for AI given its data volumes, repetitive workflows, high cost of delay, and clearly measurable outcomes.

• How to pinpoint the biggest “leaks” in time, margin, and customer trust across customer care, network operations, commercial teams, field service, and fraud/revenue assurance.

• Six proven, high-ROI AI use cases:

• AI-powered customer care and service resolution that reduces routine contacts, improves first-contact resolution, and cuts after-call work.

• Churn prediction and next-best-action retention that links risk scoring to targeted, economically sound interventions.

• Network operations, incident triage, and root-cause analysis that turn overwhelming telemetry into faster, smarter decisions.

• Field service optimization and predictive maintenance that reduce truck rolls, increase first-time-fix rates, and improve technician utilization.

• Fraud detection, scam mitigation, and revenue assurance that lower losses while strengthening customer trust and regulatory standing.

• AI-powered retail staff knowledge hubs that give frontline teams quick, reliable access to approved information in natural language.

• A pragmatic implementation roadmap: how to run an operational audit, select one high-ROI use case, design and execute a focused pilot, and then scale across the organization without getting stuck in “AI transformation” rhetoric.

• How to build AI into the operating model rather than treating it as an innovation side project, ensuring that deployments directly support service, cost, trust, and retention objectives.

• Key compliance, security, and governance requirements for AI in telecom, including data protection, human-in-the-loop oversight, reliability, and explainability.

• The ROI and customer metrics that matter most when evaluating AI success in telecom, from handling time and incident resolution to churn, fraud losses, and trust indicators.

• Concrete next steps operators can take in the next 90 days to move from experimentation to measurable AI impact in their own environments.

Will Gibson, Vice President of Amplifier and Jean-Pierre Lacroix of SLD share an episode on the telecom industry are at a pivotal crossroads. While most of the current hype around AI focuses on efficiency and cost reduction, the real opportunity lies in how AI reshapes emotional connection and customer loyalty. Our research, built on five years of studying AI’s impact in banking, reveals a new type of customer—one who trusts algorithms for guidance but still craves human understanding and local relevance.

This “AI-ready” customer uses digital tools to make informed decisions but rewards brands that ease anxiety, respect their intelligence, and feel like a part of their community. Telcos like Progresif are already proving this model works—designing flagship spaces that express cultural values while integrating AI-driven personalization and advice.

The future of telecom growth lies in combining emotional design, omnichannel storytelling, and AI-driven simplicity. When apps, websites, and stores deliver one coherent, human experience—rooted in trust and belonging—AI becomes a quiet partner in deepening relationships, not replacing them. The telco of tomorrow won’t win with speed or price alone, but with empathy, confidence, and connection—what we call the new growth bundle.

Will Gibson, Vice President of Amplifier and Jean-Pierre Lacroix of SLD share an episode on the lack of differentiation in the telco industry. Most telco stores may wear different logos, but for customers they feel interchangeable: the same light wood tables, perimeter walls, ticket machines, and scripted “sales or service?” greetings. The blog argues that this sameness is structural, driven by global vendors, queue systems, POS-led conversations, rigid scripts, and KPIs that reward speed and attach rate over experience. The result is a retail model that is efficient but emotionally flat, turning high-investment stores into commodity “SIM shops” rather than distinctive brands.

The episode would explore how to break that pattern by treating retail as cultural theatre and operations as performance. It highlights SLD’s focus on localisation, community identity, and storytelling in markets from the UK and Canada to the Middle East and Caribbean, and Maplewave’s role in redesigning queue logic, workflows, roles, and coaching so technology amplifies human interaction instead of replacing it. Using examples like EE’s experiential, gaming-led stores, you’ll outline a six-step executive playbook—from CX Audit to KPI redesign—that shifts telco retail from transactional to memorable, and shows why real differentiation now demands courage to re‑engineer both design and operating model end to end.

What audience do you most want this to resonate with: ExCo, retail operations leaders, or CX/design teams?