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At the O-RAN ALLIANCE Summit during MWC Barcelona 2026, operators and vendors openly discussed where they stand in their shift toward AI-native Radio Access Networks.

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Industry leaders endorsed the O-RAN ALLIANCE’s specifications, laying the foundation for AI-enabling platforms such as the Service Management and Orchestration (SMO), the RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), and the O-Cloud. These form the backbone of AI RAN, enabling programmability and multi-vendor innovation through open architecture and interfaces.

Based on this O-RAN specification framework, operators are already applying AI to real-world RAN challenges, such as:

• Network deployment and configuration complexity - zero-touch provisioning is essential for scale.
• Operational tasks - anomaly detection, root cause analysis, self-healing, quality assurance for slicing, and more.

What also became clear is that this is not a single leap, but a continuous evolution. Operators have different automation strategies depending on their starting points and legacy systems.

There are challenges remaining to be solved, such as:

• Fragmented network data and inconsistent data models – operators increasingly need to rely on synthetic data and digital twins to train, test, and validate AI before deployment. It is encouraging to see industry trends toward making these open source.
• Trust – AI is not only technology, it requires thorough operational transformation with key focus on security.
• Distributed AI and AI agents – while promising great value, these raise new questions about workload placement and how different layers interact.
• Standardization – especially for the O1 interface and data models, where progress needs to accelerate.

To help address these, O-RAN ALLIANCE will continue advancing global specification of open, AI-enabled RAN.

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For more on the state of AI RAN, check the O-RAN ALLIANCE Summit (available for free), especially the AI panel.

Featuring (left to right):

• Ruth Brown -Principal analyst, mobile networks at Omdia as the moderator,
• Kanika Atri - Senior Director, Telecoms at NVIDIA,
• Lucia De Miguel Albertos - Senior Open RAN Manager at Vodafone,
• Changsoon Choi - VP, NW Intelligence and Innovation at Deutsche Telekom,
• Gabriel Foglander - Head of Strategic RAN Leadership, Ericsson,
• Warren Bayek - VP,Intelligent Edge, WindRiver.

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Also, check our earlier post on the state of O-RAN adoption.