In this vignette of The 5G Factor, Ron Westfall and Todd R. Weiss provide their perspective on how Vodafone is testing the generative AI waters and working with partners Microsoft and Oracle on related AI and 5G projects.
The discussion focused on:
Vodafone 5G is Testing GenAI Waters. Vodafone is actively testing how it will use generative AI in its enterprise 5G strategies and products in the future and is working on some big ideas with Microsoft to use generative AI to write code, as well as with the recent Oracle Database@Azure launch. The Oracle Database@Azure project has a goal of easing AI workload administration, scaling, and migration across multi-cloud environments. We assess these topics and other moves Vodafone is making in this intriguing area.
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Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Transcript:
Ron Westfall: And to start off, let’s look at Vodafone who may not have had a direct interest in the Eagles-Vikings game, but does have a direct interest in gen AI. Specifically, they’re testing the gen AI waters and working with Microsoft to write code. So what is important about this is that Vodafone was prominent and the Oracle database at Azure launch that was done this week. The major goal of that particular launch is to ease AI, workload administration, scaling and migration across multi-cloud environments. So already Vodafone is playing, I think, a major role in terms of establishing Mindshare and gaining some thought leadership as to how AI technology and gen AI in particular can have an impact on telcos specifically.
Todd R. Weiss: This is really interesting ’cause it might’ve been a hard idea where in the world are they going to use this? It was like, boom, writing code. That’s a brilliant idea. It’s going to be a really great thing for companies like Vodafone that don’t have consumer-facing software or don’t have consumer-facing products, but they have these services. So using it to help increase and build their services, it’s brilliant.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. To drill down a bit, Todd, Vodafone is running proof of concepts, naturally, to figure out where the gen AI could productively and safely be used to your point, and well, they’re diverse. As many as 10 involved chatbots, and that includes TOBi, and that is Vodafone’s customer-facing chatbot as well as Asker. Hopefully, I’m doing that justice in terms of the acronym, and that’s the chatbot that’s used by the employees and systems also that are targeted at supply chain management and other telco-related activities. Now, a key interest is that Vodafone has now exposed some developers to its cyber hub team to GitHub Copilot, and that is basically the co-writing version of ChatGPT. That’s how it could-
Todd R. Weiss: Oh, wow.
Ron Westfall: … be best thought of.
Todd R. Weiss: That’s interesting.
Ron Westfall: Right on. With that, what that can do is churn out code when asked in natural language to solve a programming problem. So this is in contrast to ChatGPT, which is getting the lion’s share of headlines and publicity and so forth, basically enabling any internet user to gain say, an essay on how dandelions grow and things of that nature. So this is a different animal altogether, being able to do code. It’ll do other, I think, important capabilities such as translating from Python to JavaScript and between various other programming language. So this is something that’s been flying under the radar a bit, but it’s very important integral to AI. I know, Todd, you have definite thoughts on this.
Todd R. Weiss: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as this, this to me, I’ve been covering gen AI, and I’ve been covering AI for a number of years, gen AI in the last few years, but this could really make a giant difference because using gen AI to write code could make code better if it’s well-trained. If it’s well-trained, then it won’t make perhaps mistakes that a developer might make, inadvertently. Gen AI could certainly help us create better code, which would be more reliable code. That, to me, is one of the things, and it makes so much sense.
Vodafone, like I said, these kinds of things, the code that they need is the code that runs their systems, the code that consumers don’t see, business users don’t see, but it’s the code that makes it all possible. To me, this would be a great thing. It could make Vodafone have new features more quickly. It could give Vodafone better reliability. It could give Vodafone so many benefits because all of this could be helped along by gen AI. It’s not going to replace, it shouldn’t replace developers. They’re going to be needed there, but this can help them do more code, more code that’s even better. So to me, I think this is a huge thing.
Ron Westfall: Yes. In fact, I think you hit on a key point there. It’s a society-wide concern-
Todd R. Weiss: Oh, yeah.
Ron Westfall: … will AI replace jobs en masse? I think we’ve been here before, we’ve seen technological innovations that changed the landscape. So it’s not necessarily a zero-sum aspect. In fact, I think it has been well put that AI can enable better productivity, more efficient workflows and so forth. So I think it’s not so much AI will replace existing workers, I think what is going on is that the workers who use AI capabilities will just be more effective. The challenge is workers who are using AI versus workers who, unfortunately, may not be using AI. I think that is how we have to level set, understand the impact of AI, not just on the telcos, which is certainly important, but across all of society.
Todd R. Weiss: Oh, of course.
Ron Westfall: Right on. So yeah, it’s not just Vodafone who is pushing the proof of concepts out there and some of the experimentation that is so vital to getting this right.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
