Podcast

Ep 112 – AI agents are transforming telco, with Microsoft

March 31, 2025

This week’s guest

Kevin Shatzkamer

CVP, Customer Experience Strategy and Operations Microsoft

The telecom industry is adopting AI at break speed. Unlike past innovations that demanded risky network transformations and long timelines, AI-based innovation is accelerating experimentation without disrupting core networks.

For this episode, I sat down with Kevin Shatzkamer, corporate vice president of customer experience strategy and operations at Microsoft, to explore the power of agentic AI and why it represents such a transformative opportunity for telcos. Listen now to hear:

Why AI could be the fastest technology adoption in telecom history [03:37];
How AI agents reimagine processes instead of retrofitting existing workflows [08:16];
Ways Microsoft’s telecom customers are putting agentic AI to work in their business [12:00]; and
How telcos are unifying their data for deeper insights [13:17].

Links and resources

Take a look at Kevin’s LinkedIn post about how AI has the potential to be the fastest adopted technology in telecom history.
Read Anthropic’s guide on building effective agents.
Watch my talk from MWC25 on how to build an AI-first telco, and how operators need to tackle the legacy tech debt in their BSS estate to do it.
Check out my conversations with TelecomTV and Mobile World Live about how Totogi’s AI-first solutions are delivering real revenue growth to telcos TODAY.
Learn more about the North American operator that switched billing systems and saved big bucks with Totogi.
Read more about Microsoft’s tools for telcos:
Kevin said it took him an hour per page to write his books back in 2011. If he’d had access to AI, it would have taken minutes. Check out this guide on how to write a book with AI and this LinkedIn post about how Novo Nordisk is using it to draft documents that used to take 15 weeks in 10 minutes.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Guest bio

With more than two decades of software and operational experience, Kevin Shatzkamer has a record of driving transformation and innovation at scale to improve customer experiences. In his role as CVP of Customer Experience Strategy and Operations, he holds operational, technical, and customer responsibilities. His portfolio of work includes strategy and planning, market insights, business performance, learning and development technical enablement, compliance, and AI adoption within Customer Experience. He serves as an executive sponsor for new Azure commitments and other mission-critical engagements, as well as oversees onboarding and AI innovation across key customers.

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