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Ep 136 – MWC26 Wrap Up (Mobile World Live)
DR joins the Mobile World Live podcast to unpack the biggest takeaways from MWC26.
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Ep 138 – From programmable networks to agentic AI (Chris Wade)
This week’s guest
Chris Wade
Co-Founder & CTO ItentialTelcos have spent years automating their networks, but most of that automation is rigid. It makes the same decision every time—whether the device is offline, whether it’s a maintenance window, whether there’s a weather event. Adding AI agents sounds like progress, but if those agents aren’t built on a deterministic foundation, you’re not removing risk, you’re accelerating it. The real challenge isn’t getting AI to answer questions about your network. It’s getting it to act safely.
For this episode, I’m joined by Chris Wade, Co-Founder and CTO of Itential, a network automation platform that’s been making infrastructure programmable since 2014. We dig into how Itential is using agentic AI on live production networks, why it layers AI reasoning on top of deterministic guardrails, and how Lumen scaled from 16 to 350 automated workflows by putting field engineers in the driver’s seat.
Listen now to hear:
- Why deterministic guardrails are essential when AI agents touch live networks [04:14];
- The “secret sauce” for giving AI agents real business context [06:24];
- How Lumen grew from 16 to 350+ automated workflows [11:24]; and
- What telcos need to demand from vendors [13:05].
Links and resources
- Learn more about Itential and its agentic network automation platform, FlowAI.
- Check out Itential’s MCP server, launched in May 2024—one of the earliest in the telco space.
- Watch Greg Freeman from Lumen present at AutoCon on how his team scaled from 16 to 350+ automated workflows on Itential’s platform.
- Take a look at Aaron Levie’s blog, Building for Trillions of Agents. The Box CEO argues that agents will become the primary users of all software, and if your systems can’t be accessed through an open API or CLI, they’re invisible to AI. It’s the exact problem we unpack in this episode.
- Learn how the Totogi Ontology gives AI agents the business context they need to act on live systems and lets operators see exactly why every decision was made and make changes on the spot.
- Read my blog, The Promise of AI is No UI, written back in 2024. It predicted exactly where this conversation was headed: a world where AI agents are the primary users of software.
- Watch this scene from Silicon Valley—one of the best shows ever made about startups—where Dinesh interacts with an AI version of Gilfoyle. It aired back in 2019, before any of us knew this would be real. If you think agentic AI is a new idea, think again!
- 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
Chris Wade co-founded Itential in 2014 to simplify and accelerate the adoption of network automation and to transform network operations practices. Using a model-based approach, Chris led the innovation and development of the company’s flagship portfolio of dynamic, multi-tiered network automation applications. Prior to establishing Itential, Chris gained a wealth of experience in the SDN, NFV and OSS/BSS markets having led initiatives in this space for global organizations including Alcatel-Lucent, ReachView Technologies and Micromuse.
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Podcast credits
- Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
- Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
- Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
- Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
- Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
- Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
- Music: Dyami Wilson
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why can’t telcos just layer AI agents on top of existing network automation?
Most telco automation is brittle—it makes the same decision every time and breaks when conditions change. Layering AI agents on top without a deterministic foundation doesn’t reduce risk; it accelerates it. Chris Wade argues the right approach is to combine AI reasoning with deterministic guardrails, so agents can handle novel situations intelligently while operators maintain control over what touches critical infrastructure. Learn more about Itential’s agentic network automation platform, FlowAI.
2. What’s the “secret sauce” for giving AI agents real business context?
According to Chris Wade, the combination of domain-specific skills and MCP (Model Context Protocol) is what makes agents truly useful. Skills embed domain knowledge—like methods of procedure and design documents—directly into the agent’s reasoning. MCP provides the tools the agent uses to act. Together, they allow agents to go beyond answering questions and actually operate infrastructure with awareness of how a specific telco runs its business. Check out Itential’s MCP server, one of the earliest launched in the telco space.
3. How did Lumen scale from 16 to 350+ automated workflows?
Lumen’s VP of Network Greg Freeman took a people-first approach. Rather than relying on a small team of software developers, he built a core automation team and invited field engineers—the people with real operational expertise—to rotate through, bring their ideas, and automate their own workflows. Once built, those automations became accessible to a much broader audience through NLP and agentic interfaces. Watch Greg Freeman present at AutoCon on how his team achieved this scale.
4. What should telcos demand from their vendors to avoid AI lockout?
Telcos need to ask every vendor one direct question: “Can my AI agents access your system through an open API or CLI?” If the answer is no, that vendor is a liability for your AI strategy. Chris Wade argues the industry’s habit of treating APIs and data as proprietary intellectual property is what’s kept the telco startup ecosystem stunted. In an agentic world, a closed system is effectively invisible to AI.
5. What’s Danielle Rios take on the shift to AI agents as software’s primary users?
DR agrees with Box CEO Aaron Levie’s argument that AI agents—not humans—are becoming software’s primary users. This reframes the entire vendor evaluation process: it’s no longer about what a vendor’s own AI copilot can do, it’s about whether your agents can reach the system at all. Telcos need agents working across billing, provisioning, customer care, and the network, and any system those agents can’t access breaks the whole strategy.
6. How does the Totogi Ontology help telcos trust AI decisioning on live systems?
DR describes the Totogi Ontology as purpose-built to address one of the core challenges of agentic AI: trust. It gives operators real-time visibility into why an AI made a specific decision—whether it was driven by a rule, a spec, or a document—and lets them change it on the spot. Starting small, with humans reviewing logs and traces, allows teams to build confidence incrementally before expanding AI’s scope across more complex, higher-stakes operations.