This is according to STL Partners’ latest quarterly tracker, which notes a slow-down in new projects in Q2 and the potential for a new kind of digital divide
Two out of three telco projects in generative AI (GenAI) are building new solutions for customers, especially enterprises. This is one of the key findings from STL Partners’ Telco generative AI adoption tracker quarterly update, with new data covering the period from June to August 2025.
“The time for writing lengthy announcements is over: telcos have rolled up their sleeves and are deeply focused on building new AI-based services and solutions, and rolling them out for their customers”, notes Marina Koytcheva, Research Director at STL Partners.
Clear monetisation trend
A clear trend is taking shape: 62% of the GenAI projects recorded during this period are driven by telcos’ product management divisions, focused on monetising AI through integration of the technology into products or AI-as-a-service. They are mostly for enterprises but there are some for consumers too. As a result, the share of projects implementing GenAI into enterprise or consumer products has risen to 51% of all initiatives tracked since the adoption of GenAI started.
Another notable trend is the persistent emphasis on building AI infrastructure to enable local businesses to adopt the technology. Such initiatives accounted for one out of six projects recorded between June and August 2025.
“Deciding whether to build AI factories and, more broadly, AI-focused data centres and cloud infrastructure for customers is currently high on the agenda in many telco boardrooms”, explains Koytcheva.
Regional differences
Unmet local market needs, ranging from access to GPUs to local language AI models, drive most of these efforts, particularly in Asia. In contrast, telcos in Europe, Canada and some other parts of the world are rushing to build AI sovereignty within their home countries, chasing not just business opportunities but also technology security and advantages at national and regional level.
STL Partners notes, “If there is a small grain of concern coming from the latest quarterly research, it is the slowdown of new announcements from telcos that are yet to solidify their AI strategies”. Between June and August 2025, the number of GenAI projects announced by telcos grew by just 12%, a sharp decline from the 41% increase recorded in the previous three-month period ending May 2025.
“We have some clarity about the AI plans of the large telcos, and the most advanced and ambitious ones among the smaller players. But we are yet to hear from many telcos in smaller markets. It could be just a summertime pause of activity, or we could be seeing the first signs of how access to AI – the technology that will define the next decades – is starting to draw deeper lines between those who have the financial might, skills and scale to invest in it, and those who don’t”, concludes Koytcheva.
Trackers’ components
STL Partners’ quarterly tracker has these four component:
- Generative AI telco adoption lists all generative AI use cases in telecom globally from publicly available data and tracks important characteristics of the implementations.
- Generative AI solutions for telcos is a collection of generative AI solutions specifically designed or optimised for the telecom industry.
- Generative AI capabilities categorises distinct capabilities of generative AI and assesses their usefulness and availability, based on STL Partners’ analysis.
- Generative AI use case taxonomy provides a comprehensive list of potential future applications of generative AI in telecom, identified through STL Partners’ analysis.
