The whitepaper proposes artificial intelligence (AI) based data transformation strategy that telecom companies can use to innovate, transform, and optimize their operations across customer loyalty and retention, fraud detection and prevention, payment operations, network services improvement as well as monetizing this data to make real-time business decisions. Every day about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created. It has become an integral component of the telecom industry through the connected device ecosystem. The upgraded networks and the proliferation of smart devices have enabled the telecom operators to access a wealth of information about their customers’ behavior, preferences, movement, etc. The major telcos have seen their profits dip drastically and operating margins plunge by 1,000 bps, with recovery expected only in 2020 when industry consolidation is complete.

Meanwhile, the consolidation of large telecom operators to form a telecom giant has begun price wars in an already competitive market. With the mass-scale deployment of 5G planned in 2020, telecom operators will need to re-engineer their networks to make them smarter and more efficient. To turn this around, the companies must innovate their offerings, optimize their performance, and transform their network operations. Machine Learning (ML) and AI combined with the ubiquitous amount of data generated by telcos will pave the way for transformation in the next wave of telecom revolution. In this paper, we will talk about the various sources and the huge amount of data generated on every minute over the telecom networks and the role AI and ML play to monetize and optimize the generated data. The paper also discusses the typical challenges faced by Big Data platforms such as scalability and authenticity and further talks about a data governance strategy to eliminate these hurdles for a secure and robust AI-based platform.