At Mobile World Congress this year, Microsoft showed something that deserves more attention than it got. They call it a "telecom agentic store reference framework." Ignore the name. What it does is replace click-based customer service with AI agents that turn customer intent into action across carrier systems.
Read that again. Microsoft isn't selling software to telcos anymore. They're offering to replace the entire customer interaction layer. The same carriers that spent billions building call centers and retail stores are being told: let our AI handle it.
For partners who built their business on carrier professional services, implementations, migrations, training, this should be keeping you up at night. If the interaction layer goes to AI, what exactly are you implementing? What are you training people to do?
The ones who figure out how to work alongside this shift will do well. The ones waiting for it to blow over are going to be waiting a long time.