Channel AI Breakthroughs: AT&T, Nvidia, GoTo, Twilio, More

Channel AI Breakthroughs: AT&T, Nvidia, GoTo, Twilio

Written by Claudia Adrien
March 24, 2023

AT&T is the first telecommunications provider to explore the use of a full suite of Nvidia AI offerings.

Throughout 2023, Channel Futures will take a close look at how artificial intelligence is profoundly impacting the channel. This week’s news features updates from Nvidia and AT&T, GoTo, PolyAI and Twilio.

Before we delve into those, it’s important to note recent milestones from Microsoft and Google surrounding generative AI. Microsoft said it will bring AI to tools such as Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word. This should change how millions of people accomplish work each day, the company said. Microsoft announced its AI “Co-pilot” tool, built on the same technology that “underpins” ChatGPT. Co-pilot will help users edit, summarize, create and compare documents, among other tasks.

As for Google, it released this week its generative AI tool, Bard — though it only “will be available to a limited number of users in the United States and Britain,” reports the New York Times. Eventually it will accommodate additional users, countries and languages over time, Google said.

While some companies in the channel have implemented generative AI, other organizations are focused on additional artificial intelligence tools.

Nvidia Helps AT&T Enhance Sustainability Goals Through AI

AT&T and Nvidia are collaborating, using Nvidia-powered AI to enhance AT&T’s sustainability efforts. AT&T is the first telecommunications provider to explore the use of a full suite of Nvidia AI offerings.

The company will transform its operations by using the AI for processing data, optimizing service-fleet routing and building digital avatars for employee support and training.

Andy Markus is chief data officer at AT&T.

“We strive each day to deliver the most efficient global network, as we drive towards net-zero emissions in our operations,” Markus said. “Working with Nvidia to drive AI solutions across our business will help enhance experiences for both our employees and customers.”

The company will implement data processing using the Nvidia AI Enterprise software suite. This includes the Nvidia Rapids Accelerator for Apache Spark. They will also enable real-time vehicle routing and optimization with Nvidia cuOpt. Furthermore, AT&T will adopt digital avatars with Nvidia Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine and Nvidia Tokkio. Finally, they’ll utilize conversational AI with Nvidia Riva.

AT&T, which has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2035, has instituted broad initiatives to make its operations more efficient, the company said. A major challenge is optimizing energy consumption while providing network infrastructure that delivers data at high speeds.

AT&T processes more than 590 petabytes of data on average a day. That is the equivalent of about 6.5 million 4K movies or more than eight times the content housed in the U.S. Library of Congress if all of its collections were digital.

Telecoms aiming to reduce energy consumption face challenges across their operations. Within networks, the radio access network (RAN) consumes 73% of energy, while core network services, data centers and operations use 13%, 9% and 5%, respectively, according to the GSMA, a mobile industry trade group.