Learner’s permits are the secret to AT&T’s internal AI rollout

Using AI is kind of like learning to drive a car—you need to figure out how to accelerate and steer before you decide where you want to go. So, it makes sense that one of the keys to AT&T’s strategy as LLMs give way to AI agents is a concept many of us are already familiar with: learner’s permits. Transformation teams across the company now have access to domain-specific AI sandboxes that provide a drag and drop interface enabling them to build agentic workflows. The idea is to give employees a safe environment in which to learn how new agentic tools are built and operate—before asking them to pick a use case to implement. “We’ve done a lot of work on the front end to give people hands-on experiences as opposed to this nebulous ‘I’ve got to create this killer use case but I don’t even know what I’m talking about yet because I don’t know how these systems work,’” said AT&T’s AVP BJ Nab. “We’ve solved that gap with that permit to learn.”