For decades, the customer experience has been synonymous with a specific kind of friction. We all know the drill: navigating endless IVR menus, waiting on hold for simple billing questions, or performing the logistical gymnastics required for a routine SIM swap.

Behind the scenes, the reason for this friction is no secret. Telecom operators sit on a mountain of legacy OSS (Operations support systems) and BSS (Business support systems). These systems are powerful, but they are often siloed, complex, and never designed for the speed of modern, AI-first SMBs and consumers.

At RingCentral, we believe the solution isn’t just about adding another digital channel. It’s about upleveling the interface with AI Agents. AI agents can transform telco OSS/BSS by automating complex workflows, enabling autonomous decision-making, and integrating disparate systems for faster operations and better customer experiences.

This upleveling leverages RingCentral’s agentic architectures that could enable GSPs to collaborate across domains like network assurance, billing, and customer care.

We are witnessing a paradigm shift where voice is becoming the primary interface for network operations. By bridging the gap between complex backend infrastructure and the customer journey, we are enabling telcos to move away from transactional support and toward intent-based engagement.

Beyond chatbots: The rise of Agentic AI

The industry is saturated with basic chatbots, but the future belongs to sophisticated, agentic AI entities. These are capable of reasoning, acting, and executing complex workflows through simple conversation.

Through RingCentral’s new Voice AI platform, we provide a robust set of APIs and high-level abstractions that allow telecom providers to build custom AI agents that act as an intelligent layer on top of their legacy OSS/BSS stacks.

The true power lies in our real-time and adaptive intent-based framework. Instead of forcing a customer to understand a telco’s internal hierarchy (e.g., “Press 1 for billing”), our platform empowers agents to understand the customer’s intent behind the words.

Consider the difference this makes in high-friction use cases:

• Ticketing and provisioning: A business customer simply says, “My internet is slow for my high-stakes meeting coming up in 30 mins.” The AI agent triggers a line test via OSS APIs, creates a network actionable ticket, and provides a real-time status update—that the business customer’s BW was boosted for his high-stakes call, all without human intervention.
• Complex logistics: Another example is that of transferring internet access adding telco AI offerings. Adding AI services becomes a single conversation where AI Agents coordinate OSS/BSS provisioning services such as billing updates, ticketing notifications, scheduling actions, and much more
• Enterprise fulfillment: When an enterprise orders 50 5G lines, an agent can ingest the natural-language request, cross-reference credit checks in the BSS, query OSS inventory, and provision eSIM profiles autonomously.

Reducing the OSS/BSS burden

For telcos, the benefits are immediate and measurable. Every interaction handled by these custom agents is a deflection from the high-cost human contact center. But more importantly, it represents a massive reduction in operational complexity.

Because RingCentral provides the abstraction layer, telcos don’t need to be experts in 20-year-old legacy databases. They can be built against modern, no-code, open APIs that handle the heavy lifting of voice processing, natural language understanding, and state management. This allows for the integration of modern automated workflows, such as validating orders and triggering provisioning, without overhauling your core systems.

The future is “better together”

At RingCentral, our philosophy has always been “Better Together.” We provide world-class AI and communications innovation, while our telco partners provide the massive networks and deep customer relationships that keep the world connected.

With our latest advancements in agentic AI and OSS/BSS integration, we are handing the keys of innovation back to telco service providers. We are giving you the tools to turn your OSS/BSS from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage.

The future of telco support isn’t a better menu, it’s a better AI conversation.