Agentic AI, Sovereignty, Resiliency, Trust and Governance Permeate Mobile World Congress 2026

TBR perspective

Though AI was the overarching topic of discussion at Mobile World Congress 2026 (MWC26), sovereignty, resiliency, trust and governance also permeated conversations throughout the event. The rapid acceleration of AI — combined with mounting geopolitical uncertainty — is forcing governments and enterprises to reassess long-standing assumptions about global supply chains, labor markets, education systems and technological dependencies. As a result, sovereignty is emerging as a defining strategic priority.
 
While definitions of sovereignty vary, a common theme emerged throughout MWC: Nations increasingly want to own, operate or meaningfully influence critical components of the digital stack that underpin economic stability and national security, including connectivity infrastructure, data platforms, cloud environments and, increasingly, AI capabilities.
 
For telecom operators, this shift could represent one of the most significant structural growth opportunities for the industry in years. Telcos sit at the intersection of domestic technology infrastructure and government policy, positioning them as natural partners in sovereignty-driven initiatives such as secure networks, domestic data hosting, cloud services, resilient communications infrastructure and trusted AI deployment.
 
Governments are increasingly looking for national or regional champions that can anchor sovereign digital ecosystems, and telecom operators — given their existing infrastructure, regulatory relationships and role in critical communications — are well positioned to play that role. As sovereignty agendas translate into funding programs, regulatory support and public-private partnerships, telecom providers that align their strategies with national priorities could unlock new revenue streams while reinforcing their roles as strategic infrastructure providers in the AI era.
 

Impact and Opportunities

Sovereignty and resiliency may be the telecom industry’s next growth catalyst

Governments are beginning to put real action behind years of rhetoric around digital sovereignty, largely under the banner of national security. More than 90 countries now have formal sovereignty statements, signaling sustained policy momentum rather than a passing trend. Current geopolitical conflicts, including the war in the Middle East, are reinforcing the urgency of this shift. TBR expects governments with the financial capacity to allocate substantial funding and regulatory support as well as provide other favorable market conditions to domestic champions that can help advance sovereignty objectives. Telecom operators and their critical vendor ecosystems are particularly well positioned to play a central role.
 
Specifically, TBR expects telecom operators to receive unprecedented government backing to expand their roles across sovereign digital infrastructure. This includes owning and operating data centers, supporting data residency requirements, and investing in greater network resiliency through cybersecurity, redundant facilities and diversified backhaul routes. These investments are aimed at strengthening national security, protecting sensitive data and reducing reliance on non-domestic providers wherever possible. Telecom operators are also well positioned to integrate connectivity infrastructure and data centers with AI models and applications in ways that comply with domestic regulations. Canada, Europe, the developed Middle East and parts of Asia and Oceania are likely to lead this sovereignty push.

Governance becomes a prerequisite for success with AI

Governance was a recurring theme across content sessions and executive meetings at MWC26. As telecom operators move from experimentation to operational in AI, creating a corporatewide, centralized framework for data management, model oversight and regulatory compliance is becoming essential. Without clear governance, AI initiatives often remain fragmented across business units, leading to inconsistent outcomes, duplicated efforts and limited enterprise impact.
 
The challenge is that most telecom operators still lack a horizontal governance model for both AI and data. Data ownership is often siloed, policies vary by department and there is limited visibility into how models are trained, deployed and monitored. This fragmentation makes it difficult to scale AI beyond isolated pilots and increases operational, regulatory and reputational risk.
 
Telecom operators with strong C-suite sponsorship are best positioned to overcome these challenges. Executive backing helps enforce common standards, prioritize enterprisewide data initiatives and ensure AI programs are aligned with broader digital transformation objectives. Without this level of leadership support, governance efforts often stall as organizational silos resist change.
 
Leading telcos are beginning to formalize governance by creating centralized data offices and appointing chief data officers responsible for enterprisewide data strategy and governance. In practice, robust governance is quickly becoming a prerequisite for AI. Organizations that establish clear frameworks for data quality, access, security and accountability will be far better positioned to operationalize AI at scale and consistently generate business value.

Trust can be a CSP differentiator and revenue driver for telecom operators

Trust emerged as a central theme at MWC26, with many industry leaders warning that confidence in the digital ecosystem is eroding as scams and fraud proliferate across networks. Estimates suggest that roughly $500 billion is lost each year globally to fraud and scams, underscoring the magnitude of the challenge. With networks acting as a critical conduit — and often a chokepoint — for malicious actors, many speakers emphasized that telecom operators must play a more proactive role in addressing the issue. The industry issued a clear call to action for operators, technology vendors, regulators and other ecosystem participants to collaborate more aggressively to combat fraud and restore confidence in the digital world.
 
Several discussions at MWC26 framed trust as both a responsibility and a potential competitive advantage for telecom operators. Telcos sit at the center of digital connectivity and increasingly function as a protective layer for the broader digital economy. However, while technology innovation is accelerating rapidly, the mechanisms that ensure trust — security, verification, governance and consumer protections — are not evolving at the same pace. Fraud and scams not only cause financial harm but also risk eroding public confidence in digital networks and services. Because trust is fragile and can be quickly lost, operators must treat it as a strategic asset that requires ongoing investment and careful stewardship.
 
Some industry leaders suggested that trust could become a differentiator for telecom operators relative to hyperscalers and other digital-native companies. Customers often view telecom providers as more regulated and infrastructure-centric, and therefore inherently more accountable than large technology platforms. The open question for the industry is whether this trust advantage can be monetized, either through stronger customer loyalty, increased market share or the development of new trusted digital services. However, the inverse is also true: If trust erodes further, consumers and enterprises may alter their behavior, potentially bypassing traditional telecom channels.
 
Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal pointed to roaming as a model for industry collaboration. Over the past two decades, operators have worked collectively to dramatically reduce the cost and friction associated with international roaming. Mittal suggested that a similar level of global coordination among operators, technology providers and regulators could be applied to tackling scams and fraud. In doing so, telecom operators could help society regain greater control over the digital environment — in addition to reinforcing their role as a trusted foundation of the global communications ecosystem.

The initial focus for AI-RAN is AI for RAN

Most of the AI-RAN-related announcements and discussions at MWC26 centered on AI for RAN, which entails applying AI models to improve the performance, efficiency and automation of radio networks. Several vendors demonstrated how specialized GPUs and AI accelerators can be integrated into the baseband to process RAN workloads more efficiently than traditional hardware, enabling operators to apply machine learning models to tasks such as network optimization, traffic management, and increasingly, radio signal processing. Key use cases include channel estimation, traffic prediction and beamforming optimization, each of which can help improve spectral efficiency and throughput while lowering power consumption. The first commercially available AI-RAN products will come to market in 2027, with 2026 as a development and proof-of-concept year. RAN vendors can expect to start realizing meaningful revenue growth from AI-RAN in 2028.

Agentic AI holds promise, but telco adoption remains slow

Agentic AI — systems capable of autonomously planning and executing complex tasks — featured prominently in discussions across MWC26, but adoption among telecom operators remains limited. While vendors and technology firms are aggressively advancing agent-based architectures, most telecom operators remain focused on foundational generative AI deployments such as copilots, knowledge assistants, customer service automation and language translation (T-Mobile’s Live Translation service is an example of an initial network use case for agentic AI). Moving from these assistive use cases to fully autonomous agents requires significantly higher levels of data quality, governance and system integration than most telecom operators currently possess.
 
Data fragmentation and the lack of enterprisewide governance frameworks are major barriers to scaling agentic AI initiatives for telecom operators. Telecom operators typically operate across dozens of siloed operational and business support systems, making it difficult for autonomous agents to reliably access and act on enterprise data. As a result, most agentic AI activity among telcos remains confined to pilot programs and proofs of concept, often focused on narrow operational workflows such as network troubleshooting or IT automation. Until operators establish stronger data governance models and centralized AI strategies, agentic AI will likely remain an experimental capability rather than a widely deployed operational tool.

AI agent marketplaces hint at the emergence of a digital labor market

One of the more intriguing ideas circulating at MWC26 was the notion of job postings for AI agents and the emergence of marketplaces where organizations can source them. As agentic AI evolves and becomes intertwined with the labor market, enterprises may increasingly seek ways to “hire” AI agents capable of executing discrete tasks or workflows.
 
Conceptually, this could resemble a new class of digital labor market in which organizations post tasks or roles that can be fulfilled by autonomous agents. Over time, this dynamic could give rise to a broader ecosystem of AI agents hosted on marketplaces that are effectively “looking for work” — something akin to a hybrid between hyperscalers’ cloud marketplaces and platforms such as Indeed.
 
Early examples of agentic AI are already demonstrating this model’s potential. Initial AI agents introduced by companies such as Anthropic are capable of autonomously handling tasks ranging from legal research to creative work, often with minimal human intervention. As these systems become more sophisticated and capable of executing multistep workflows, it is likely that enterprises will increasingly source specialized agents rather than build every capability internally. This shift could drive the emergence of marketplaces where companies — and eventually consumers — discover, benchmark and deploy AI agents that meet specific operational needs.
 
In practice, enterprises are unlikely to post job listings through traditional HR processes. Instead, AI agents will likely be sourced and orchestrated through software platforms and workflow systems that dynamically assign tasks to the most appropriate agents. This creates the foundation for a new digital economy centered on AI labor, with new markets emerging around agent distribution, infrastructure and trust. As organizations begin deploying agents in critical workflows, marketplaces will likely evolve to include performance benchmarking, compliance certifications and reputation systems that help enterprises determine which agents are trustworthy, secure and effective.

ISAC is here now

The mobile industry may not need to wait for 6G for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) capabilities to begin emerging. While ISAC is widely viewed as a core feature of future 6G networks, several vendors are already demonstrating how sensing functionality can be enabled using existing LTE and 5G infrastructure. Startups such as Tiami Networks are developing solutions that leverage existing radio signals and machine learning algorithms to transform cellular networks into wide-area sensing systems capable of detecting objects such as drones and vehicles or human movement.
 
These early implementations sit largely outside formal 3GPP ISAC specifications, relying instead on clever signal processing, software and edge compute to extract sensing insights from existing RAN transmissions. Although still in the early stages of commercialization, these systems are already being tested and deployed in niche environments such as defense, critical infrastructure protection and public safety. As standards bodies continue developing native ISAC capabilities for 6G, these early deployments provide a glimpse into how mobile networks may increasingly double as large-scale sensing platforms.

Conclusion

MWC26 made clear that the telecom industry is entering a new phase shaped by the convergence of AI, geopolitics and digital infrastructure. While AI dominated the conversation, the broader narrative that emerged centered on control, resilience and trust in an increasingly complex digital environment.
 
Sovereignty initiatives are pushing governments to rethink how critical infrastructure is owned and operated. At the same time, telecom operators are grappling with the organizational and technical prerequisites needed to operationalize AI at scale, including governance, data management and system integration. Together, these forces are redefining the role telecom operators play in the global technology stack — not simply as connectivity providers, but as strategic infrastructure partners in the digital economy.
 
Ultimately, sovereignty, governance, trust and AI are deeply interconnected. Governments want trusted domestic infrastructure. Enterprises want secure and reliable AI-enabled services. And consumers increasingly expect digital environments that are safe and resilient. Telecom operators sit at the center of all three dynamics. If telecom operators can successfully align AI innovation with strong governance frameworks and trusted infrastructure, they have an opportunity to move beyond the traditional connectivity business and play a far more central role in shaping the next phase of the digital economy.