AT&T’s Chief Data Officer Andy Markus thinks that the advent of generative AI (GenAI) will have as big an impact as smartphones and the emergence of PCs as a household item.
Much of Markus’ insight was garnered from the company’s use of Ask AT&T. An example of the impact cited by Markus: Software developers achieved efficiency gains of 30% or more when using GenAI when developing and creating code.
Markus says that the benefits of generative AI aren’t only for technology people. Programs using Large Language Models for chat generation of image and video are ways in which GenAI are benefiting the public.
AI in general and generative AI specifically are controversial and somewhat frightening to some people, however. As could be expected, younger folks adjust to the new technology a bit more quickly than their parents. Markus cited a survey that found that the national average of those somewhat or very positive about using AI in daily life was 52%. The portion rose to 59% of millennials and 58% of Gen-Z respondents.
Markus thinks that the growth of generative AI functionality will make it a common tool that performs increasingly sophisticated tasks on behalf of its users.
“GenAI will be central to planning vacations and trips, organizing our schedules, helping us manage our finances, assisting in research, helping us communicate better with our friends and family and managing our business interactions more efficiently,” he wrote in a blog post. “GenAI-based tutors, trainers, translators, and more will also quickly become accepted.”
Markus pointed to the need for vigilance against those who use the tools for scams and fraud. He also got personal, saying that generative AI helped him write an obituary and eulogy for his father.
An important part of the equation for telecommunications companies, Markus said, will be having enough capacity for the explosion of data transport that generative AI makes likely.
Expressing confidence in AT&T’s network preparations, Markus wrote, “On an average day, our network now carries 737.2 petabytes of data (a petabyte being equal to about 20 million filing cabinets worth of printed out info). That’s a 5,166% increase from an average day in 2007, the dawn of the smartphone era.”
The firm Mobile Experts sees the same data needs on the horizon. Last month, the firm warned that “unprecedented” level of uplink traffic to 5G networks was possible, and that the release of generative AI enhancements “could be a turning point.”
