Closing the Telco Commerce Gap Between Connectivity and Loyalty

The Gap Behind the Growth of Telecom

Years ago, network operators could confidently charge subscribers a premium for fast, reliable mobile voice, and data services without worrying about them switching to a competitor. But as the competition among operators intensifies, subscribers now have the freedom to switch providers with ease and at a moment’s notice.

At the same time, subscribers’ attention has increasingly become concentrated within digital ecosystems. Gaming, streaming, social media, and other digital platforms now play a larger role in shaping engagement and loyalty than connectivity alone.

This shift is reflected in the growth of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). Grand View Research projects the global MVNO market will grow from US$94.8 billion in 2025 to US$171.6 billion by 2033, as subscribers are drawn to MVNOs’ lower prices, convenience, and ease of use.¹

As a result, voice and data services have become increasingly commoditized. While connectivity remains essential, it is no longer enough to secure customer loyalty, as digital platforms have started capturing a larger share of the customer relationship.

Coverage and price remain important, but loyalty is increasingly shaped by the overall customer experience.

Why Digital Transformation Requires More Than Another App

Most telecom leaders recognize the value of convergence. Customers want fewer bills, simpler bundles, and support that follows them across channels. According to FTI Consulting, convergence lifts customer satisfaction by about 10 percentage points, and roughly 40% of non-converged US households express interest in converged offers.²

The challenge lies in moving beyond the vision to build the operating model that supports it. Many service providers still run fixed and mobile operations in separate silos, with separate catalogs, billing, and customer care systems. As a result, creating an offer that combines multiple services (e.g., mobile and fixed broadband) remains a challenge. Because of legacy systems and complexity in quoting and order processing, launching new bundled offers can take many months.

Addressing these legacy bottlenecks requires operators to modernize core systems and adopt a composable, API-first commerce architecture. APIs connect capabilities such as product catalogs, pricing, billing, and order management to a flexible commerce layer. This modular approach allows operators to introduce new bundles, integrate partner services, and support emerging buying channels without rebuilding the entire platform each time.

A converged bundle can only move as fast as the slowest system behind it.

From Fragmented Customer Data to Real-Time Decisioning

Beyond bundled offers, disconnected systems also affect customer data and engagement. Fragmented systems make it difficult to maintain a complete customer view, carry context across channels, and turn customer signals into timely, relevant actions.

Customer Views That Are Disconnected

Data on service usage, billing, service interactions, browsing behavior, and household relationships is often stored in separate systems. As a result, service providers struggle to build a complete customer profile and deliver individualized offers.

Friction for Customers, Systems, and AI

Customers expect their services to work together across channels, but disconnected systems often break that experience and cause frustration. Integration gaps also make AI recommendations less useful, because models lack a complete view of the customer.

Using Real-Time Data to Improve Customer Service

Telecom providers can combine real-time customer data, such as sentiment and recent support interactions, to improve service. AI can then identify the next best action for service staff while the interaction is still in progress.

Employee-Supported and Guided Interactions

The same real-time data supports staff-assisted interactions, giving employees the context they need to guide each conversation.

Commerce in the Age of Conversation

AI can do far more than recommend products. With more advanced personal assistants, customers will use different strategies to locate and evaluate products. Recommendation engines will be the first of many AI-driven changes in customer–business interaction.

Digital channels will rely less on graphical interfaces and more on conversational ones that combine product knowledge with recommendation systems to understand what customers need. These interfaces help shape customer journeys through chat flows that engage customers at key points in the buying process and help them complete purchases.

Customers can research plans, make purchases, track orders, and even request returns in a single conversation with a digital or human agent. Recommendation engines will help these agents guide customers from research to purchase.

Emerging standards such as Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol and OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol are creating new ways for AI agents to transact on behalf of customers, which will change how both search and commerce work.

From Connected Experiences to New Revenue Streams

Customers see every interaction as part of one continuous conversation and expect to move across touchpoints without repeating information. When broadband consumers upgrade their services, they might compare offers on a competitor’s site, contact a sales representative on WhatsApp, book an installation appointment through a voice assistant, and pay in a mobile app. At each step, they expect not to have to repeat the same information.

Technology can also make self-service easier. For example, AI in customer support can help customers resolve issues using images they share, such as a photo of their router. Because operators can deliver a growing range of services on the same underlying technologies and platforms, they can quickly create bundled and personalized offers across multiple services.

By extending the commerce layer to support adjacent services, such as streaming, smart home security, and device protection, operators can bundle these services with mobile or broadband plans or sell them as standalone offerings through a digital marketplace. This creates opportunities to grow revenue beyond connectivity while giving customers a single place to discover, purchase, and manage a wider range of services.

The Real Stakes: Making the Right Choice at the Right Time

As commerce becomes more AI-driven, systems will help customers choose and buy the services that best meet their needs. However, if an operator’s product and service information is not defined and structured in a way AI can understand, customers are unlikely to find it.

AI systems can synthesize large volumes of structured product information to assess whether an offer meets a customer’s needs and, if it does, help the customer complete the purchase. As AI plays a larger role in influencing purchase decisions, operators need to remain top-of-mind, relevant, and easy to purchase from throughout the customer journey.

The mandate is clear. As AI increasingly shapes how customers discover and buy services, operators need modern commerce capabilities that make offers easy to find, understand, and purchase. Those that delay these changes risk losing visibility and sales as buying journeys increasingly move through AI assistants.

Agentic AI shifts the enterprise from task automation to orchestrated workflows that learn, adapt, and compound value.