Yandex Empowers Telecom Operators to Develop AI Products

Global technology firm Yandex, known for its machine learning-based services, has introduced a special initiative for the Indonesian telecommunications industry to accelerate the development and launch of artificial intelligence (AI) products on a national scale. Telecommunications operators are in an ideal position to drive AI adoption to a wider society, particularly because they have a large user base, trusted brands, and mature infrastructure distribution as a crucial foundation for launching AI products nationally, said Alexander Popovskiy, CEO of Yandex Search International. The initiative, titled “AI for Telecom Operators”, offers three cooperation schemes. Operators can integrate their services into Yandex’s existing AI products, adopt Yandex’s technology into their own ecosystems, or launch standalone AI products using Yandex’s technology under the operator’s own brand identity. Yandex stated this move is relevant to current conditions in the Indonesian market. A recent AI survey from Kumparan showed that 97 per cent of respondents acknowledged AI has played a role in their daily lives, with the highest usage for information searching (80 per cent), communication and translation (70 per cent), as well as assisting with work or tasks (68 per cent). The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) also recorded Indonesia’s AI adoption rate at 92 per cent and affirmed AI as one of the pillars of national productivity. Given this high adoption rate, Yandex assesses that telecommunications companies, which have high levels of consumer interaction and deep knowledge of local markets, can deliver more personalised AI products compared to global AI services that tend to be generic or designed for all users without distinguishing specific needs. Alexander added that telecom operators actually already possess all the basic capital required. “They already have millions of customers and the infrastructure needed to reach the public at large. They just need the right tools and the expertise we possess after many years of building AI-based technology capacity,” he said.