As one would expect, artificial intelligence was a top theme at the recent MWC conference in Barcelona, but 6G was certainly prominent as well. This year, the discussions has pivoted from the maturation of 5G wireless networks to the “seamless path” toward 6G. But for those of us who have spent the better part of two decades watching G-cycles come and go, there was a healthy dose of skepticism at the show.
Enterprises are currently fighting a two-front war. On one side, there is an aggressive push toward AI adoption; on the other, an infrastructure landscape so fractured across edge, cloud and on-premises sites that scaling becomes nearly impossible.
The communications industry is filled with vendors that once dominated one aspect of the “stack” but have been focused on building a unified platform that includes voice, video, meetings, contact center and much more. But the most interesting vendor in the market is Zoom Communications Inc.
We are squarely in the artificial intelligence event season with MWC just wrapping up and Nvidia GTC and RSAC on deck. The talk of every show this year has been about moving AI from vision to reality. However, it’s often the case that the transition from AI experimentation to production-grade, value-generating systems hits a wall because of infrastructure availability and readiness.
Over the past 18 months, the enterprise technology narrative has been dominated by a singular, persistent theme: artificial intelligence, more specifically agentic AI. From CES to NRF to the World Economic Forum, every vendor, service provider and analyst firm has been preaching the gospel of AI.