Escaping Legacy Gravity

Agentic AI promises to reshape how telcos operate, compete, and create value. But that promise cannot be realized while operators remain anchored to fragmented, debt-ridden legacy stacks that exert a constant gravitational pull on every transformation initiative.

Telcos are investing aggressively in AI, autonomous operations, self-optimizing networks, and next-generation digital services. Yet many initiatives remain trapped at the pilot stage because operations are fragmented, data is inconsistent, and critical business logic, meaning, and enterprise knowledge are locked in legacy systems.

Zero Gravity Telco Architecture™ introduces Tech Mahindra’s architectural framework for reducing legacy debt by externalizing enterprise context, and creating the governed foundation required for trusted agentic AI at scale. The framework also presents the Zero Gravity Index, a structured diagnostic that shows every operator where it stands on the journey from legacy inertia to agentic autonomy and provides the architectural blueprint to break free.

7×3 Matrix

Enterprise taxonomy that pinpoints exactly where gravity hides

2×2 Grid

Zero Gravity Index, navigational tool for operators to assess readiness, sequence investments & plan transformation

8 Layers

Architectural layers that externalize trapped business meaning and logic into shared, governed foundations

What Is Legacy Gravity?

Legacy Gravity is the cumulative, compounding pull exerted on every business initiative by the mass of an organization's existing application, integration, and data estate. The cumulative effect is an estate so heavy that even simple changes become disproportionately slow, costly, and risky.

The Challenge Manifests Across Three Interconnected Gravity Wells

Application Gravity

Business logic, workflows, configurations, and policies tightly coupled within enterprise applications, making every business change a technology program.

Integration Gravity

ESBs, custom APIs, and batch interfaces that have quietly become an informal process model nobody dares touch, as change-resistant as the applications they connect.

Data Gravity

Business semantics hardcoded into ETL pipelines, metric definitions, and BI dashboards, leaving AI to inherit fragmented, inconsistently governed data with little transparency into meaning.

Autonomous IT represents a fundamental shift in how enterprises operate and manage technology. Rather than reacting to incidents after they occur, intelligent platforms continuously analyze operational signals, predict potential risks, and initiate corrective actions in real time. From a CIO's perspective, the objective is to build an IT environment that can learn, adapt, and self-heal with minimal human intervention while maintaining resilience and business alignment. Achieving this vision requires the integration of observability, artificial intelligence, machine learning, AI agents, service management, and real-time data into a unified operating model. While automation drives greater efficiency and responsiveness, human expertise remains critical for governance, architectural oversight, strategic direction, and complex decision-making.

The real value of autonomy lies not in automation for its own sake, but in its ability to dramatically improve customer experience through resilient, responsive, scalable, and business-aligned operations.

Sukhdeep Gill,
Acting Chief Digital Officer,
Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison

Measure Your Gravity.
Define Your Path Forward.

Download Whitepaper Download Whitepaper

Identifying the Sources of Gravity

Reducing gravity requires more than modernization initiatives. Telcos must first understand where enterprise intelligence is trapped.

Tech Mahindra’s proprietary 7×3 Enterprise Taxonomy provides a structured framework for identifying the execution logic, policies, data assets, integrations, security controls, observability mechanisms, and lifecycle processes embedded across today’s application estate.

The Anatomy of Legacy Gravity

What It Contains Business Domain Technology
Execution Logic Business Journeys (Ex. Lead to Customer Acquisition) Domain Process Flows (Ex. Account Creation & Maintenance) Executing Engines (Ex. Event Driven n State Transitions)
Data Business Data (Ex. Churn Propensity Scores) Domain Entities (Ex. Cases, Complaints & Tickets) Persistence & Storage (Ex Golden Customer Record)
Rules & Policies Business Rules (Ex. Offer Eligibility by Segment) Domain Rules (Ex. Case Priority & Routing) Tech & Compliance (Ex AI Explainability Policy)
Integrations & Interfaces Business Interfaces (Ex. Chatbot, Virtual Assistant) Cross-domain Integration (Ex. Order Management → Order Trigger) Technical Middleware (Ex. Kafka Event Streaming)
Identity, Access & Security Persona Governance (Ex. Consumer Consent) Data Object Classification (Ex. Consumer pricing data classification) Security Mechanisms & Protocols (Ex. RBAC on catalog operations)
Observability & Auditability Business Health Monitoring (Ex. Order Cycle Time) Functional Logs & Data Lineage (Ex. End-to-end order lineage trace) Telemetry Frameworks (Ex. Kafka consumer lag monitoring)
Configuration & Lifecycle Business Updates (Ex. Rate Plan Updates) Structural Schema Evolution (Ex: CDM format additions for 5G/6G/IoT) Automation & Delivery Pipelines (Ex: CI/CD for Billing rule deployments)
  Embedded in Application Code Locked to One SOR’s Data Model ARD Coded & Version Locked
What It Contains ↓
Execution Logic
Business Journeys (Ex. Lead to Customer Acquisition)
Data
Business Data (Ex. Churn Propensity Scores)
Rules & Policies
Business Rules (Ex. Offer Eligibility by Segment)
Integrations & Interfaces
Business Interfaces (Ex. Chatbot, Virtual Assistant)
Identity, Access & Security
Persona Governance (Ex. Consumer Consent)
Observability & Auditability
Business Health Monitoring (Ex. Order Cycle Time)
Configuration & Lifecycle
Business Updates (Ex. Rate Plan Updates)
Embedded in Application Code
Execution Logic
Domain Process Flows (Ex. Account Creation & Maintenance)
Data
Domain Entities (Ex: Cases, Complaints & Tickets)
Rules & Policies
Domain Rules (Ex: Case Priority & Routing)
Integrations & Interfaces
Cross-domain Integration (Ex: Order Management – Order Trigger)
Identity, Access & Security
Data Object Classification (Ex: Consumer pricing data classification)
Observability & Auditability
Functional Logs & Data Lineage (Ex: End-to-end order lineage trace)
Configuration & Lifecycle
Structural Schema Evolution (Ex: CDM format additions for 5G/6G/IoT)
Locked to One SOR’s Data Model
Execution Logic
Executing Engines (Ex. Event Driven & State Transitions)
Data
Persistence & Storage (Ex: Golden Customer Record)
Rules & Policies
Tech & Compliance (Ex: AI Explainability Policy)
Integrations & Interfaces
Technical Middleware (Ex: Kafka Event Streaming)
Identity, Access & Security
Security Mechanisms & Protocols (Ex: RBAC on catalog operations)
Observability & Auditability
Telemetry Frameworks (Ex: CDM format additions for 5G/6G/IoT)
Configuration & Lifecycle
Automation & Delivery Pipelines (Ex: CI/CD for Billing rule deployments)
Embedded in Technology Stack

By mapping enterprise capabilities across business, domain, and technology dimensions, operators gain a clear view of where gravity exists and where it must be externalized to support future AI-led transformation.

The Zero Gravity Index

We can now map a telco's readiness on the journey from legacy inertia to agentic autonomy with the Zero Gravity Index, a 2×2 grid across two axes.

AXIS
PROGRESSION
Horizontal:
Gravity Reduction
From complex unmanaged state to a governed, externalized state that agents can safely reason and operate
Vertical: Towards
Autonomy
From manual and human-operated to autonomous, multi-agent operation

Where an Operator Sits Defines Its Reality and Its Risk

Assisted Legacy Inertia

Gravity wells active and compounding; automation limited in scope. Where most Tier-1 and Tier-2 operators start.

Autonomous Trapped Ambition

A zone to be mindful of. Autonomous agents deployed onto unreformed legacy, where they are likely to hallucinate and fail at every seam, eroding executive confidence despite heavy investment.

Assisted Clean Foundation

The hidden value zone: rules externalized and data governed, delivering faster time-to-market, lower change cost, and better data quality before a single agent goes live.

Autonomous Adaptive Intelligence

The target state: every system agent-ready, multi-agent ensemble operating end-to-end within governed boundaries. New products launch in days; networks self-heal; customer intent drives fulfilment end to end.

Strategic Insight: The instinctive path is to deploy agents first to show AI progress. This can lead towards trapped ambition. The disciplined path moves horizontally first, into clean foundation, and only then vertically, into adaptive intelligence.

2-Dimensional Zero 
Gravity Index Grid

The Zero Gravity Index

The Zero Gravity Index

The Zero Gravity Architecture

Traditional architectures force every application to have its own business meaning, operational context, and decision logic. Zero Gravity Architecture introduces a structurally different model.

Context is treated as a shared enterprise asset

Intelligence is externalized

Systems of record become agent-ready

Execution becomes deterministic and tightly governed

The Eight-Layer Target Architecture

01
Intent & Experience Layer
Captures and interprets business and customer intent
02
Agent Mesh
Hosts autonomous and semi-autonomous AI agents
03
Data Foundations
Governed data products and AI/ML capabilities
04
Enterprise Context Layer
Provides shared meaning and enterprise knowledge
05
Deterministic Execution Fabric
Ensures reliable, auditable execution of agent actions
06
Agent-Ready Systems of Record
Legacy and modern systems externalized for agent access
07
Digital Core
Cloud, edge, and on-premise infrastructure
08
Observability & Governance Layer
Continuous monitoring, compliance, and control

Together, these components establish the architectural foundation required for AI-native operations at enterprise scale.

Know Your Zero Gravity Index Position

Most operators are spending on AI without architectural readiness. The Index can map your journey, build Clean Foundation first, scale agents, and avoid the costly trap of Trapped Ambition.

Download Whitepaper Download Whitepaper

Built to Work with Industry Standards

The Zero Gravity Telco Architecture™ is built directly upon prevailing industry standards rather than acting as a proprietary alternative. This architectural framework operationalizes and extends the core principles established by the TM Forum Open Digital Architecture (ODA), providing a practical blueprint for telcos to transition toward structured, open digital autonomy.

Industry Standard
Alignment Within Zero Gravity Telco Architecture™
TM Forum's AI-Native ODA (TMF448)
Aligned with TMF448's principles for cross-domain autonomous flows and a governed agent execution layer.
TM Forum Information Framework (SID)
The Layer 4 context layer translates operational assets into canonical SID terms.
TM Forum Intent Ontology (TR 292)
Applies the TIO/TR292 intent-ontology approach, extended to commercial intent.
Autonomous Networks Framework (IG1230)
Network performance data products, architected per IG1230, are exposed through the shared context layer so commercial-domain agents can consume them.

AI will not deliver its full potential on fragmented architectures and inconsistent business logic. Operators that want to become autonomous enterprises must first build trusted foundations, shared understanding and governance that allow AI to operate safely and at scale. Tech Mahindra's Zero Gravity Telco Architecture™ aligns closely with the principles behind TM Forum's AI-Native Open Digital Architecture and highlights a reality the industry can no longer ignore: AI doesn't move from pilot to production without trust.

Nik Willetts,
CEO,
TM Forum

Gravity Reduction Impact

By reducing gravity, the Zero Gravity Telco Architecture TM delivers differentiated impact to the telco. As gravity reduces, a CXO will notice differentiated impact across critical outcome scales – Business Velocity, Commercial Agility, Transformation Risk and Operational Resilience.

MONTHS High Gravity
Months
HOURS Low Gravity
Hours

Business Velocity

(Decision  ⟶  Live Change)

QUARTERS High Gravity
Quarters
DAYS Low Gravity
Days

Commercial Agility

(Opportunity  ⟶  Market)

HIGH High Gravity
High Debt
LOW Low Gravity
Low Debt

Transformation Risk

(Technical Debt)

FRAGILE High Gravity
Fragile
SELF-HEALING Low Gravity
Self-healing

Operational Resilience

(Detect  ⟶  Heal)

Value is unlocked only when you systematically reduce the gravity that the existing stack exerts on the next initiative, and every initiative after it. The telcos that break free of gravity first are the ones that will be better positioned to shape the competitive landscape over the next ten years.

Amol Phadke,
Chief Transformation Officer,
Tech Mahindra

Begin with Balance,
Not with Agents

Every operator is already somewhere on the Zero Gravity Index, knowingly or not. The question is whether the move is governed and sequenced or left to happen by accident at considerable cost.

In the first 90 days, a Zero Gravity Diagnostic:

  1. 01 Establishes your current position on the index
  2. 02 Identifies the principal sources of application, integration, and data gravity
  3. 03 Prioritizes the journeys where gravity reduction creates the fastest business impact
  4. 04 Provides a sequenced roadmap to your target state

Let’s Design Your
Ai-native Future Together.

Download Whitepaper Download Whitepaper
Download Whitepaper