5G and artificial intelligence (AI) are two of the dominant themes coming out of this week’s MWC Barcelona 2024 event, according to Dan Hays, a partner at consulting firm PwC.

Hays, during a press briefing from the event, noted that 5G adoption was “at the forefront of everyone’s attention,” but that attention was increasingly on ways the technology can be better monetized by operators.

One of those ways is through private 5G networks, which remain an enticing – though future-looking – use case for telecom operators. “Private networks are still largely a technology searching for a value proposition,” Hays said.

Hays explained that there continues to be a large amount of interest and trials of private networks, “but private wireless largely is still not seeing a huge uptick and adoption at the enterprise level just yet.”

That sentiment has been echoed by operators that continue to see limited traction in the space. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg noted during an earnings call late last year that while the operator is seeing increased interest, he does not expect private networks to start contributing “any significant revenues that have an impact on Verizon overall in 2024. We’re going to see that in 2025.”

Verizon has scored some recent deals on large-scale private network deployments, which Hays calls “wide area or pseudo-wide area type of environments.”

“Things like large ports or large manufacturing facilities that have a combination of indoor and outdoor capabilities,” Hays explained. “Those are very much in the crosshairs for private networks and the topic of a lot of conversation here.”

Analysts have noted that journey could see total spend on private networks surpass $9 billion by 2028.

AI initiatives have also been forefront at this week’s event, with Hays describing strong interest in the use of AI and generative AI (genAI) stretching from network equipment to help in managing business and customer interactions.

While the customer support use case has gained the most initial use case appeal, Hays said genAI efforts are also starting to move slowly outside of the customer service space and out into the field.

“Many operators are now looking at how can I better equip my field technicians to work on and resolve network issues and customer issues while they're on site so that they avoid a second truck roll and more rapidly resolve problems when they happen,” Hays said.

The industry itself is also attempting to corral this opportunity, highlighted by the formation this week of the AI-RAN Alliance. That group is looking to steer the use of AI into the radio access network (RAN) for better performance, lower operating costs, greater efficiencies and to support new business models.

GenAI momentum is also being helped by its ability to placate the pressing operator and industry challenge around costs. A recent report from Nvidia found that 67% of telecom professionals surveyed reported AI has helped increase revenues, while 63% said it has also decreased costs in specific business areas.

“When it comes to the use of generative AI in the telecom world, what we're doing right now is following the money, and the money at the moment is in large-scale human-intensive operations,” Hays said. “The two areas that have been hottest for the use of generative AI have been customer care and field operations. Both very costly, lots of people and typically higher turnover rates for staff. So those have been the ones that have been getting the most attention, even though you can apply genAI today on many things. Those very human-intensive types of functions are the ones that are that are getting an awful lot of attention here.”