Baran Yurdagul
Chief Operating Officer, Vodafone Qatar

The Vodafone Qatar COO on why AI in telecom is mostly invisible, how a contact centre transformation turned into a product, and why the next phase of the region’s AI story is about connecting capabilities rather than collecting them.

BB: Vodafone Qatar sits at the centre of the country’s telecom and digital infrastructure story. What’s the biggest misconception people have about how AI and technology are actually deployed at operator scale versus how it’s discussed publicly?

BY: The biggest misconception people have about AI in telecom is that it is mainly about customer facing chatbots or AI generated advertising campaigns. In reality, that is only a small part of the story.

At Vodafone Qatar, we look at AI as an operational capability that spans the entire customer lifecycle. Behind every customer interaction are hundreds of processes involving customer data, service assurance, workforce management, knowledge systems, quality monitoring and decision engines. The challenge is not deploying AI, it is integrating it into mission critical operations while maintaining reliability, security, compliance and customer trust.

The public discussion often focuses on what AI can create. We focus on what AI can improve. Whether it is reducing customer effort, enabling faster issue resolution, supporting our frontline teams with real time insights, or delivering more personalised experiences, the real value comes from embedding intelligence into core business operations rather than treating AI as a standalone technology initiative. This is the transformation Vodafone Qatar is focused on driving.

BB: What’s one initiative from the past year you’d point to as evidence of where Vodafone Qatar’s technology strategy, and Qatar’s digital infrastructure more broadly, is actually heading?

BY: Our AI Contact Centre transformation best illustrates where our technology strategy is heading. Rather than viewing AI as a standalone tool, we chose to redesign the entire customer engagement model around it. We are implementing a next generation, AI enabled contact centre that brings together AI self service, multilingual digital bots, intelligent routing, real time transcription, agent assist, sentiment analysis, quality monitoring and a unified customer view across voice, chat, email, social and digital channels. The objective is simple: faster resolution, a more personalised experience and greater operational efficiency at scale.

What makes this initiative particularly significant is that we are not stopping with our own operations. We deliberately designed the platform as a multi tenant solution, allowing us to extend the same AI powered capabilities to enterprise customers through an “AI Contact Centre as a Service” offering. This enables businesses in Qatar to access enterprise grade customer engagement technology without having to build and operate the capability themselves.

For me, this reflects a much broader shift in the telecom industry. Operators are evolving from connectivity providers into digital services partners. By first deploying these capabilities within Vodafone Qatar and then commercialising them for enterprise customers, we are creating a model where innovation enhances our own customer experience while opening new growth opportunities in AI enabled managed services and SaaS solutions.

BB: Where do you see the biggest gap between the pace of AI adoption people expect from telecom operators and the pace they’re actually moving at?

BY: Many people assume AI is something telecom operators are only just beginning to explore. The reality is quite the opposite.

At Vodafone Qatar, AI and machine learning have been part of our business for years. We have developed more than 50 data science and AI and ML use cases across the customer lifecycle, helping us make smarter decisions around customer acquisition, retention, personalisation, churn prediction, credit risk management and customer value management. Every day, we process petabytes of data and analyse millions of customer interactions and signals to improve customer experiences and business outcomes.

The biggest gap, in my view, is not in the adoption of AI itself, but in the maturity of how organisations use it. Many are still focused on individual, separate AI use cases. The next phase is about connecting these capabilities across the business, so they work together to create a step change in customer experience, operational efficiency and decision making. That is where the real value lies, and that is where telecom operators have a significant advantage because of the scale, data assets and digital capabilities they have built over many years.

BB: What’s a lesson from leading operations at Vodafone Qatar through this shift that you think other technology leaders in the region underestimate?

BY: AI transformation is not just a technology transformation, it is fundamentally a people transformation.

Many organisations focus heavily on platforms, tools and investments, but underestimate the importance of culture, processes and change management. Even the most advanced technology will fall short if employees do not understand how it improves decision making or customer outcomes.

One lesson we have learned is that successful transformation requires business, technology and operations teams to work together from the outset. When customer service teams, commercial teams and technology teams work toward a common objective, adoption happens significantly faster and the business impact is far greater.

Ultimately, transformation succeeds when employees see technology as an enabler, not a replacement.

BB: Looking at MENA’s technology and innovation sector as a whole, what’s the shift you expect to matter most over the next two to three years?

BY: The most important shift will be the move from digitalisation to intelligence.

Over the last decade, organisations focused on digitising processes and services. Over the next few years, the focus will shift to making those processes intelligent through AI, automation, advanced analytics and real time data.

What excites me most is that MENA is uniquely positioned to lead this change. Governments, regulators and businesses across the region are investing heavily in digital infrastructure, cloud technologies and AI capabilities. The opportunity now is to move beyond deploying technology and start creating measurable economic and societal value from it.

Organisations that successfully combine connectivity, cloud, AI and industry specific expertise will shape the next phase of growth. I believe the region will increasingly be recognised not only as a consumer of technology, but also as a creator of digital innovation.