Apple Podcasts 
Spotify 
YouTube 
Ep 144 – TDC’s dragon in the basement (Carlos Moreno Alonso)
TDC Brands CTIO Carlos Moreno Alonso shares how the Denmark telco is tackling its decades-old mainframe and transforming with AI.
Podcast
Ep 145 – Swisscom is building the AI-first telco (Mark Düsener)
This week’s guest
Mark Düsener
Chief Technology & Information Officer SwisscomWhat does it actually take to become an AI-first telco? Swisscom is finding out. It has launched the biggest transformation program in its history: a ground-up rebuild of the software core behind its consumer and enterprise business units.
In this episode, I sit down with Mark Düsener, chief technology and information officer at Swisscom, to unpack how the operator is doing it. We get into why standardization is the new differentiation, why you can’t be agentic without a brain, and how Swisscom is converting the know-how of its hero engineers—critical talent at telcos—into skills everyone can use.
Listen now to hear:
- Why data is the “brain” AI needs [05:17];
- How Swisscom is collapsing its systems into one platform [07:51];
- Mark’s rule for killing technical debt [12:14]; and
- How to bring your experts along when AI codifies what they know [12:49].
Links and resources
- Read Swisscom CEO Christoph Aeschlimann’s LinkedIn post about why telcos have to reinvent themselves at the core, not just the edge.
- Listen to Mark’s interview on the TM Forum podcast. He talks about how Swisscom is using AI to move to an open, composable architecture, even across applications still tied to legacy systems.
- Tired of knowledge staying locked inside your experts’ heads? Read Anthropic’s explainer on Agent Skills, the codified, reusable expertise Mark wants his “heroes” to package so any agent or colleague can call it.
- Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over your mainframe, BSS, and network systems so they all speak one language, letting you retire one legacy system at a time instead of betting on a multi-year rip and replace.
- Interested in the underlying architecture for becoming AI-first? I’ve written three blogs on this topic:
- “You built a data lake. You needed a river” about why AI needs an ontology close to your live systems so it can act, not just report.
- “Nail your AI architecture” about why business logic doesn’t belong inside your agents.
- “Where do decisions live?” about the board-level question of where decisions should be made in an AI-native telco.
- Mark’s go-to dish is filet with asparagus and béarnaise. Béarnaise is the sauce home cooks fear most, a temperamental combination of egg yolks and butter that breaks the second you stop whisking. I attempted it and produced something I’d rather not describe. If you want to try it, watch culinary icons Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, and Martha Stewart make béarnaise together in this TV clip from 1999.
- 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
Mark Düsener is chief technology & information officer (CTIO) at Swisscom and a member of the Executive Committee, Swisscom Switzerland. He leads the IT, Network & Infrastructure division and drives the modernization of Switzerland’s network landscape as part of Swisscom’s TelCo to TechCo journey. His focus includes advancing Switzerland’s best and smartest network across fixed and mobile, expanding 5G and preparing for 6G, while driving the transformation towards automated, software-driven networks and an AI-driven Swisscom. He joined Swisscom in November 2020 and most recently led the Mobile Network, Mobile Services & B2B Telco unit. Prior to Swisscom, he was managing director of Deutsche Telekom Healthcare Solutions GmbH and held various leadership roles at Vodafone Germany.
Follow DR
- Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
- Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
- Follow DR on X @TelcoDR
The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast, and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.
If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!
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
Most popular podcasts
Follow now
Get my FREE newsletter, delivered every two weeks, with curated content to help telco execs across the globe move to the public cloud.
Wanna talk public cloud?
Set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.
More episodes from Telco in 20
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What does it actually take for a telco to become “AI-first”?
According to Swisscom CTIO Mark Düsener, being AI-first requires far more than deploying chatbots or agentic pilots—it means rebuilding data, systems, processes, and roles from the ground up. This echoes Swisscom CEO Christoph Aeschlimann’s point, made in his LinkedIn post, that telcos have to reinvent themselves at the core, not just the edge. Swisscom launched one of its largest-ever transformation programs to unify data onto a single platform and turn expert know-how into reusable skills. It is treating the effort as a full business transformation rather than a technology project.
2. How is Swisscom building a single data foundation for AI?
Swisscom is consolidating data from roughly 200 systems into one platform, using a data model derived from TM Forum standards. Domain experts translate each source’s data so concepts like “customer” mean one consistent thing enterprise-wide. Host Danielle Rios compared this effort to the Totogi Ontology, a living model of facts, meaning, and decisions that governs AI agents rather than just storing data, and that helps telcos unify data without a multi-year rip-and-replace.
3. Why does Mark Düsener say “standardization is the new differentiation”?
Mark Düsener argues that being special or non-standard used to be how telcos differentiated themselves, but that approach now creates complexity and slows things down. As he explains on the TM Forum podcast, standardizing lets Swisscom launch or change products in days or hours instead of months or years. Speed, not customization, is now the real competitive advantage.
4. What happens to Swisscom’s “hero” engineers during this AI transformation?
Swisscom has long relied on a “hero culture”—expert engineers whose deep knowledge gets called on whenever something breaks. Düsener is asking these employees to codify that knowledge using Anthropic’s Agent Skills, packaging their codified expertise into reusable skills so agents and colleagues can access it instantly.
5. What is the Totogi Ontology, and how does it help telcos running legacy systems?
The Totogi Ontology is a living model, built specifically for telco, that connects facts, meaning, and decision logic across mainframe, BSS, and network systems so they all speak one shared language. Danielle Rios explains that it lets telcos retire legacy systems one at a time instead of betting on risky multi-year rip-and-replace. Built on TM Forum standards, it helps AI agents reason and act consistently across an organization.
6. Why does Swisscom frame AI as being about growth, not efficiency?
Mark Düsener says framing AI purely as an efficiency play misses the point and creates fear among employees. Instead, Swisscom positions AI as fuel for growth: faster innovation, better customer service, and personal growth for employees learning new skills more quickly, an idea Danielle Rios has also written about in her blog, “You Built a Data Lake. You Needed a River.” He notes that any efficiency gains are meant to free capital for further innovation, not just cut headcount.