Orchestration Emerges as Key Battleground in 2026 Telecom AI Deployments

Questex’s Fierce Network TV (FNTV) releases its 2026 Networked Agentic AI Index, revealing that orchestration is the new strategic battleground for telecom and cloud vendors. The report, titled AI Agents of Change, highlights how major players are deploying networked agentic AI in live carrier environments.

Ericsson Leads the Pack

Ericsson tops the index with a perfect score of 15/15, followed closely by Nokia at 14/15. Both companies demonstrate strong carrier trust, bounded autonomy models, and a conservative approach to large language models (LLMs) outside live control paths.

Erik Ekudden, CTO of Ericsson, states: “You cannot add AI as an afterthought. It has to be built into the network fabric - distributed, energy-aware, and capable of autonomous decision-making across domains.”

Deterministic-First Architectures Prevail

The report emphasizes the importance of deterministic-first architectures in core infrastructure. Gary Smith, CEO of Ciena, reinforces this: “For the foreseeable future, the core management of the network has to remain deterministic.”

Philippe Ensarguet, VP of Software Engineering at Orange, outlines the hierarchy: “Infrastructure carries data. Data enables automation. Automation enables AI - in that order.”

Cloud Operators Tread Cautiously

Even among the most cloud-forward U.S. operators, caution prevails. John Keib, Chief Technology and Product Officer at Google Fiber, notes: “I don’t know if we ever get to five. The industry consensus is that four is the reach goal.”

Index Highlights

The 2026 FNTV Networked Agentic AI Index categorizes vendors into three tiers:

• Top Tier (Above the Kármán Line - 10 Points): Ericsson - 15, Nokia - 14, Amdocs - 12, Ciena / Blue Planet - 12, Huawei - 12
• Middle Tier: Guarded Experimentation: Cisco, HPE (Juniper), IBM / Red Hat, Samsung Networks
• Below the Line: Hyperscaler Logic: AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Mavenir, Rakuten Symphony, ZTE

All ranked vendors will be exhibiting at MWC26 in Barcelona, making the show floor a live arena for this architectural debate.

Where To See Networked Agentic AI at MWC26

The report concludes that orchestration is now the strategic battleground. AI is no longer just analytics layered on top of operations; it increasingly influences what the network does next. The critical question is not whether to deploy agentic AI but where to place probabilistic reasoning inside live control systems.

Carriers are not rejecting AI. They are insisting that autonomy remain bounded, explainable, and accountable. As MWC26 opens in Barcelona, the global telecom industry debates a fundamental question: In a five-nines world, how much probabilistic intelligence is too much?

References

• Questex’s FNTV Releases 2026 Networked Agentic AI Index Ahead of MWC26 | The Manila Times