Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to become pervasive throughout the telecommunications ecosystem, Nokia said, citing a McKinsey 2025 study, according to which telecom operators expect at least a 20 percent cost savings across all business functions. According to the Finnish telecom gear vendor, "AI will be instrumental in shaping 6G, which will be the first generation of cellular networks truly designed with AI at its core."
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AI as the Core of 6G Networks
As the first generation of mobile cellular networks with AI in its DNA, 6G will integrate AI and machine learning (ML) into all domains and layers of the system, from devices to the RAN, core network, and orchestration/management domain, Nokia said in a post on March 7.
6G Creates New Use Cases
Nokia said the goal is to create an ecosystem for AI and 6G that lays the foundation for a decade of new use cases. Customers will be the ultimate beneficiaries. "AI will help to provide them [Customers] with a wider array of innovative services and applications, enhancing their overall experience, and retaining the historical trust that they have long had for telco services," the company added.
Nokia explained that AI has enormous potential to add value to 6G. "AI-native 6G will be a pivotal force in driving revenue, growth, performance, and reducing operational costs. It represents a fundamental shift, whether for optimising network performance, enabling new business models, or providing tangible value to CSPs and industry verticals."
"In the case of intent-based cognitive automation, the value AI provides can be as high as 90 percent faster detection and resolution of network issues compared to manual methods. Similarly, AI-powered energy-saving provides 10–20 percent RAN energy savings while promising more improvement to come," Nokia explained.
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AI Agents
Furthermore, Nokia added that AI agents have the potential to fundamentally transform the way humans and machines get tasks done. "Beyond automation and efficiency, AI will play a strategic role in making networks capable of continuously and autonomously optimising for changes in traffic, radio and user behaviour. It will speed service delivery, improve customer experiences, enhance decision making, and unlock new revenue streams. It will also support many new use cases and applications such as generative AI, agentic AI, robotics and immersive extended reality (XR) by providing edge-based AI-powered services tailored to the user's needs," Nokia said.
AI use from 5G-Advanced to 6G
Nokia said that the groundwork for AI-enhanced connectivity and intelligent network operations was laid in 5G-Advanced (5G-A) with support for AI training, testing, validation and monitoring.
According to Nokia, in many aspects the AI/ML features in 5G-Advanced 3GPP standards form the foundation for 6G, such as the Release 18 and 19 study and work items on AI in radio as well as the introduction of the Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) and its further generalisation and extensions with the Data Collection Coordination Function (DCCF) in 5G core.
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Conclusion
Nokia concluded by saying that "for 6G to be truly AI native and capable of powering AI use cases of every kind, it has to be more than an overlay or add-on to the 6G system. AI-powered components need to be built into the architecture and be scalable, secure and ensure privacy."
