Artificial Intelligence (AI) will make telecom networks self-healing and significantly improve customer services, Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal said on Saturday. Speaking at the India Mobile Congress 2025, Mittal highlighted that the government is striving to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technological landscape. The country, in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is working to create an organised national response to harmonise the developments in AI and telecommunications for the greater good.
"As we transition from 5G to 6G, there is a tremendous role for AI to enhance network intelligence, making them self-healing," Mittal stated. "Moving from generative AI to agentic AI will replace many functions, both in the front end, deep in the network, and the middle part of the network, thereby improving customer service".
According to telecom industry players, 6G trials are expected to start in 2028 and commercial deployment will take some more time.
The risk and vigilance required
Mittal acknowledged that while AI offers benefits, there are also risks associated with its malicious use, necessitating constant vigilance.
"I oversee telecoms in the Government of India. We are seeing how artificial intelligence-aided tools are leading to deepfakes, voice cloning, financial fraud, and bypassing voice and video identity verification," Mittal explained. "Therefore, we have to be very vigilant about what the telecom network will look like with artificial intelligence".
AI's role in fighting fraud
In a positive example, the Department of Telecom (DoT) developed an AI-based fraud risk indicator tool. Using this tool, payment apps like PhonePe and Paytm have claimed to protect citizens from fraud worth Rs 200 crore and block more than 48 lakh suspicious transactions.
India's AI vision
"We believe that AI for good, driven by foundational pillars of innovation, skills capacity building, governance, and standards, should lead to trusted, impactful, and accessible solutions for everybody," Mittal asserted. "India is advancing the AI for good vision through a $1.25 billion India AI mission by investing in research, startups, and scaling to advance the goals of a secure and inclusive AI ecosystem".
He concluded that India continues to shape the AI fairness and governance agenda through its leadership at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-24) and its contributions to the ITU's AI standardization framework.
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