Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) desires to develop into an AI-native telco, a objective certainly one of its senior executives acknowledges is much from simple. “It has develop into a strategic precedence for us to construct an AI-native telco, though it’s a very bold goal,” Ishari Siriwardane, deputy chief transformation officer at SLT, instructed Gentle Studying throughout an interview on the sidelines of FutureNet 2026.
Few service suppliers carry as a lot historical past as SLT. The corporate started as a authorities division in 1858, went via privatization with Japan’s NTT as a strategic investor, and is now a blue-chip title on the Colombo Inventory Alternate, with the federal government nonetheless holding 52%. It competes with Dialog Axiata and Hutch Sri Lanka.
SLT began about 4 years in the past not with AI however with what it calls a digital maturity evaluation. “There have been about 20 plus initiatives that we began off on our digital transformation program,” she says. That led to a devoted digital transformation division, now housed throughout the IT group. The corporate has additionally shaped a Middle of Excellence crew for AI and has appointed a head of information and AI, revealed Siriwardane.
The place AI is already working
In customer support, chatbots and assistants now face clients, and there are additionally AI brokers on the again finish to stop employees from having to log into a number of methods when dealing with a criticism. “Now we now have AI brokers being constructed on the again finish in order that they’ll fetch this data fairly rapidly after which help the client,” Siriwardane mentioned, including “so the cycle time that we take to resolve a problem for the client has improved.”
Credit score management is subsequent, with customized assortment actions made attainable with AI. It will probably assess components like buyer habits and fee historical past, in addition to what triggers them to make a fee, she acknowledged.
On the community facet, AI helps with fault identification and backbone. “We’ve a really fragmented and heterogeneous community, which is a problem,” she says. AI helps with fault identification and backbone, significantly in wi-fi community, however it’s “not gone as much as the autonomous stage.” The duty now’s scale: “In order that we are able to make it the default setting within the group so that everyone makes use of it.”
The toughest issues aren’t technical
The corporate’s historical past is each an asset and a drag. The primary subject is that the common worker at SLT is greater than 45 years outdated. “Altering the mindset of the individuals, getting them to adapt to AI and likewise maintain that change has develop into a problem.” The duty is “transferring away from this concern issue that AI goes to take my job form of a state of affairs we have to take care of. So we have to have that cultural shift throughout the group.”
One other subject is legacy infrastructure, which makes it tough to undertake and implement new options. “Operating AI on high of the legacy infrastructure is sort of difficult,” she says, and modernization wants capital when margins are skinny. “We do not need to burn our fingers as properly by spending plenty of capex,” she says. There’s a stability to strike between investing in modernization whereas sustaining profitability.
The third problem is state possession. “We’re additionally certain by authorities processes and procedures,” mentioned Siriwardane, for the reason that firm is 52% authorities owned. She added this implies coping with issues like pink tape.
5G, however solely the place it pays
SLT launched 5G final yr and like different service suppliers it’s battling monetization. The brand new business angle is AI tokens. “We’re taking a look at new merchandise and options the place we are able to bundle AI tokens with 5G connectivity,” mentioned Siriwardane.
Since 5G use instances are restricted, SLT has adopted a considerably completely different strategy with deployed 5G. It launched 5G final yr and had determined in opposition to a pan-country rollout in Sri Lanka, an island nation with a inhabitants of twenty-two million in 2025.
“It [5G monetization] is a problem for us as properly,” she mentioned. “Since we’re a small nation, we do not need to deploy 5G all throughout the nation.” Due to this fact 4G stays the mainstream community, whereas 5G can be utilized in strategic areas, akin to locations with excessive enterprise and financial exercise like airports or stadiums.
Coaching 3,500 individuals
“Proper now we now have about 3,500 plus employees which we plan to coach,” Siriwardane says. “So 50% of that is already educated and we’re concentrating on to finish the coaching […] by the top of the yr.”
Commenting on AI instruments, Siriwardane famous that they “have offered Microsoft Copilot licenses for everyone.” They’ve made obtainable completely different variations of MS Copilot relying on the profile of the worker.
On the identical time, SLT can also be evaluating cheaper open supply fashions for inner use to deliver down value. “We’re value acutely aware,” she says, with token prices rising, and “we need to ensure that it would not hit our stability sheet.”
