AN has a benchmarking challenge: The road to ROI must be measured

Depending on which flavour of management consultant you ask, they will tell you that change without measurement is aspiration, guesswork, gambling or doomed to disappointment.

This is particularly pertinent when it comes to investments in increasing network autonomy. As an industry we have a consensus that more automated, more intelligent networks are a good thing, and we are investing accordingly.

Interim TM Forum survey data from 78 validated operator respondents indicates 77% of telcos are increasing investment in autonomous networks over the next 12 months. One in five are increasing investment by 10% or more.

These percentages may change by the time the survey closes. TM Forum will publish the finalized results by the end of 2026 when it presents them at Innovate Asia, and in its upcoming Autonomous Network ROI report due in December. Other significant interim results include:

• 62% of telcos can easily link autonomous network improvements to operational benefits
• But only 37% can link AN operational benefits to financial outcomes
• 51% do not think vendors provide sufficient tooling to measure AN ROI
• 80% admit they need to build more internal tooling to measure financial ROI from AN investments

These survey insights are combined with a range of additional inputs, most notably a series of in-depth interviews with telecom stakeholders. From these a deeper picture emerges with a rift between those who can clearly articulate the operational and business value of their investments, and those who are more challenged to make the case to the CFO.

What it often comes down to is three things:

• The ability to benchmark as-is state
• Model investment ROI to planned state
• Connect investment impacts in one area to secondary and tertiary impacts across the business

The final report will seek to provide a model for what return on investment the industry can expect to see from its autonomous networks investments, as well as recommendations on how it can proceed to maximize those returns.

However, one call to action is already clear: When 80% of operators admit they need more internal tools to measure the financial ROI from autonomous networks, then the question becomes what financial returns from AN investment can a telco even recognize?

If you would like to contribute to this research on Telecom Autonomous Network ROI we have two surveys currently in the field, due to close in late October:

The TM Forum Autonomous Networks ROI Operator Survey 2026 (this is only for telecom operators)

The TM Forum Autonomous Networks ROI Vendor Ecosystem Survey 2026 (this is for the wider vendor and autonomous network solution eco-system)