Telefónica strengthens its leadership in autonomous networks at DTW Ignite 2026 and receives global recognition from TM Forum

• Telefónica consolidates its position at the forefront of the global telco ecosystem with advances in the roll-out of Level 4 autonomous networks and AI-native operations.

• The company has been honoured by TM Forum with the Catalyst Innovator: Voyager award, which recognises its impact, leadership and collaboration within the global innovation ecosystem through the Catalyst programme.

Telefónica took part in DTW Ignite 2026, a world-leading telecoms industry forum organised by TM Forum and held in Copenhagen from 23 to 25 June. This event brings together industry leaders to drive the transition towards autonomous networks and AI-native models, with a focus on putting the transformation of the telecoms sector into practice.

Telefónica had a prominent presence at the event, with several executives and experts taking part. Andrea Folgueiras, the company’s Global CTIO, spoke at a key session on scaling autonomous networks, where she highlighted the sector’s main challenges in moving towards fully autonomous operations and emphasised the importance of evolving towards intelligence-based models and strengthening essential capabilities such as data, orchestration and assurance. She also highlighted the role of artificial intelligence and agentic models as key elements in driving the efficiency and scalability of operations.

“Network autonomy is a reality we are already working on at Telefónica, and it enables us to advance our mission of becoming the best gateway for citizens, businesses and public administrations to digital technologies. The challenge is to scale with impact: to transform our operations, integrate intelligence natively and ensure that autonomy translates into real value for the business and for our customers,” said Andrea Folgueiras, Global CTIO at Telefónica, in Copenhagen.

As part of the event, the company was awarded the Catalyst Innovator: Voyager prize by TM Forum, which recognises organisations making the greatest impact within the Catalyst collaborative innovation programme. This recognition positions Telefónica as the organisation with the second-highest global contribution in this edition and reinforces its leadership as one of the most significant and influential players in the ecosystem, contributing to common standards and models for the sector.

The Catalyst programme is one of the most significant drivers of collaborative innovation in the telecoms sector. Within this framework, Telefónica, alongside operators, technology providers and strategic partners, is driving the development of solutions to accelerate the industry’s transformation towards more agile, intelligent and, above all, value-oriented models.

During the event, Nilmar Seccomandi, Director of Autonomous Network & Infrastructure within Telefónica’s Global CTIO area, had the opportunity to take part in key sessions on the deployment and scaling of autonomous capabilities, presenting real-world use cases and demonstrations of the work we are carrying out across the company’s various operations.

Furthermore, Telefónica has taken part in sector-wide benchmarking initiatives to define metrics for autonomy and return on investment, and has presented a detailed overview of its work on the various Catalysts, projects, which focus on the transformation of network operations, the customer experience and new business models.

Among the initiatives are Agent Fabric – Phase III, which is developing an agent platform to enable scalable and reliable autonomy, Agentic NOC, aimed at transforming operations centres into fully AI-native environments based on intelligent agents, and 5G slicing with GenAI, which, through an intent-based agent-driven solution, reduces the time required to define new slicing services to minutes. Projects such as Business-aware GNN-healing networks drive self-healing networks through advanced artificial intelligence and digital twins, whilst Driving Adaptive Operations in ANL4 advances the intelligent management of changes in Level 4 autonomy environments.

There are also projects that help strengthen critical aspects such as security and trust through initiatives like Zero-Trust Agents, which enables agents to run in secure, vendor-independent environments, as well as improving the customer experience through projects such as Boosting NPS beyond network KPIs with Agentic AI and GenAI Proactive Customer Experience, which incorporate artificial intelligence and agentic models to identify new drivers of perceived quality and transform AI into a driver of value. Furthermore, initiatives such as Game X – Phase II demonstrate how closed-loop automation and intelligent agents can optimise operations and improve the end-to-end customer experience.

The scope of these projects is expanded by international initiatives such as Multi-agent Intent-based Orchestration – Phase III, which focuses on intelligent orchestration to optimise network planning and investment, and LIA FieldOps, which introduces AI agents for real-time field support, enabling more autonomous and efficient operations. Meanwhile, the Essential Framework for Telecom Agentic AI project lays the foundations for the large-scale development and deployment of agents in the telecoms sector.

These initiatives, which reinforce Telefónica’s commitment to innovation and enable the company to offer more and better services to customers, reflect Telefónica’s active role in the practical application of artificial intelligence, automation and open architectures, accelerating the sector’s transformation towards smarter, more autonomous and results-oriented models.