82 percent of rural broadband operators are stuck without an AI strategy

A recent Innovative Systems survey of 132 rural operators found 82% have no clear or defined AI strategy and 49% have only limited or informal adoption of the technology. It’s no surprise, then that 56% of the operators surveyed–and 66% of small, rural providers with fewer than 10,000 subscribers–said they feel like they’re behind with AI. Rural operators are most commonly using AI for internal knowledge-based search (43%), targeted marketing (39%), threat detection (27%), and network monitoring (24%). Though operators generally catch a lot of flak for using AI in customer service, rural operators have been much slower to move on this front, with only 14% leveraging chatbots, 12% using service assistants, and 15% using AI for call quality assurance. Among the hurdles to broader AI adoption, 68% cited a lack of internal skills or confidence, while another 53% pointed to uncertainty about vendors and tools. Safety and regulatory concerns (38%), a lack of documentation around processes that could be automated (37%) and resistance to change (37%) were also top challenges.