NVIDIA recently issued its third annual State of AI in Telecommunications report. The company manufactures many of the cards used in AI data centers, so the company is clearly focused on AI adoption. NVIDIA issues similar reports for other industries.

The 2025 report is the result of a survey that NVIDIA administered to 450 telecom professionals worldwide. The respondents represented a global mix of telecommunications companies, including network operators, system integrators, internet service providers, network equipment providers, independent software vendors, and more. Sixty percent of respondents were executives and directors of companies. The report doesn’t tell us anything about the companies included in the survey but does note that NVIDIA has mostly concentrated on cellular carriers.

The reason that is important is that I found this survey when somebody online mentioned this report, when saying that most telcos have adopted or will soon be adopting AI. The NVIDIA report is fairly careful to say the results represent the views of the 450 respondents, but even NVIDIA occasionally slips up with global statements such as, “97% of telcos are adopting AI. Nearly half are already deploying it”.

Here is how NVIDIA claims AI is being used in telecom:

• 37% are using AI in network operations and planning.
• 44% are using AI to optimize the customer experience.
• 58% are using AI to increase employee productivity.
• A smaller percentage of respondents are using AI for improved security, customer retention, energy conservation, regulatory compliance, marketing optimization, retail operations, and logistics.
• 21% say AI has helped them increase revenues by more than 10%, with another 24% saying revenues have increased 5-10%.
• 11% claim that AI has helped them reduce costs by more than 10%, while another 26% say costs are down 5-10%.
• 43% say that finding AI experts has been the key obstacle to further AI adoption.

All of this may be true for the largest carriers around the world, but I can’t imagine it is true for the large number of smaller ISPs I know.

I’m curious how many smaller ISPs have done anything serious with AI. It’s hard for anybody to claim they don’t use AI since it is now seemingly built into every online tool in some manner. I’ve talked to a number of folks at ISPs who use AI to help write emails, memos, and reports.

I’d love to hear from folks at small ISPs. Is your ISP using AI for anything like what is described by NVIDIA? That might include things like using AI to chat directly with customers online or using AI to monitor network performance. Everybody I’ve talked to is curious about the potential of AI, but almost universally they aren’t ready to trust it in real-time applications. I’m curious if there is a quiet AI revolution going on at smaller ISPs that I haven’t heard about.

In a few years, small ISPs might not have a choice. I have to think that in a few years, many of the software packages that come with network gear will include AI applications to monitor performance or troubleshoot problems, but I haven’t heard any claims about that yet from vendors.