From Barcelona to the world: MWC's tech for good revolution

So welcome back to MWC twenty twenty four here in beautiful Barcelona. And I'm really excited to welcome back for the third time, the GSMA CMO, Laura Dwarf. Welcome back. Welcome back. So much for having me. Thank you. Yeah. And joining me is Gil Roseanne, our CMO who's been co hosting several of the episodes so far this week. So it's always great to have Gil on board. And hosting the show is And hosting. Oh, wow. Yes. Yes. I can't even remember my name anymore. So that was good that you prompted me on that, Gil. So, Lara, let's begin. Let's dig in. How's the week been? The week's been absolutely mad, which is I think exactly what we want from MWC. This edition is the biggest since pre pandemic. Yeah. And we're very, very proud of it. The halls are busy. The content program is, you know, it's spinning. It's incredible. And the ministerial program, which is kind of behind a veil because it's an invite only program, is also just, we're just blowing the doors off of it. Yeah, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. And you referenced it there, Laura, that when the pandemic hit, that's when we started the podcast, but everything stopped. We talked about it, you and I, we've talked about it several times over the years. Is everything gonna return back to full capacity? And it is. It's bigger and better than ever. And I think that's a credit to you and credit to the GSMA because I have to say, not all the regular events we attend survived, right? Even now. I can definitely feel the energy, which is different than the year before and the year before that. And I think it's not only post COVID it's even pre COVID it's probably one of the most energetic shows that I've been in. And it's also the evolution of the industry beyond the single connectivity connection, theme. And I think that's super interesting. I'm going to ask you the obvious question, of course, and I know what the answer is, but, I think we should dive into it more. What is the topic that is I think on everybody's, not minds, but on everybody's floors here? IOT, is it? Well, it's AI. Does that surprise you? No. Not at all. No. It's just, it's everywhere, isn't it? It's the most profound thing. We have two hundred and sixty ish sessions in our, across our contenting, across across content rather, across eighteen platforms. And of those two hundred and sixty, fifty of them formally are about AI. And then there's thousands of informal conversations going on regarding AI as well. And lots of innovation on the show floor. Yeah. You know, I of course, so Amdocs, we're all in on generative AI and not going to talk specifically about what we do, but the thing is, which is striking in my mind is that when I think about last year twenty three and this year and the difference that, and the Delta from what we showed last year to what we showed this year for me, it feels like five years have passed. The amount of innovation that we've been able to insert, inject into our suite and the amount of innovation that we can even inject into legacy Amdocs and even non Amdocs products with our generative AI platform, Amaze, is profound. And I think what's profound about it, I'll be glad to hear your take is, it's not just like our industry's development. This is like a society changing technology. What do you think? Completely. We did a graph for a presentation we were working on when we looked at adoption of certain kinds of technologies over the years and how long it took to get to a hundred million users. And chat GPT was just two days. Yeah. So, we also said in the same context, we used to plan like a short term plan was like six months to two years, and a long term plan was five to ten. Of course, in recent times, we look less at the long term because five years seems like such a long horizon. But that short term horizon is now like, it's six months. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, long term horizon is almost six months from a technology perspective. Maybe not a strategic one, but, yeah. The the pace of technology is breathless. We we were talking, just before this got started about Sora. And, three or four weeks ago, it wasn't there. And we were thinking maybe one thing about the development of movie making, knowing generative AI and then Sora shows up and shows you the capabilities or just the beginning of the capabilities and you realize what you thought was like nothing compared to what is will be impossible. So it's like, it's mind blowing and it's not just communication, it's an industry. It's all verticals and we support all of them. That's why we, I think are super important. Yeah, of course. And actually on the show floor represented attendees, for example, thirty thousand companies represented. Sixty percent of those are outside of the core mobile ecosystem. So it's that's a reflection that the things that are occurring now, the innovations that are happening require at least collaboration and partnership and probably more than two entities, sometimes three. It's just it's incredible. I have a question for you. I I believe we get it. I can tell you from a company perspective, we're all in. Do you feel that all the companies and as an industry, because you don't have to name names, but do does everybody get it? Or is it still do you need to still push people to do it faster or to even accept the fact that this is game changing? No, think everyone gets that it's game changing. I think there's still polar opposite ends of a conversation where we're concerned about the implications of a technology we don't completely understand yet through to early adopters who, to your point, they're like all in and just making cool things happen. And I think that's where the GSMA comes in to an ecosystem and says, let's help sort out this conversation. Let's bring some examples of where things are being done really well, but let's also make sure that we're having the conversation around what's responsible and ethical in this new And so for us, that's where we find meaning and purpose in the work that we do. Is it not This was something I heard Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft talk about in Davos. And I don't know if you guys have looked at this, Lara. But the thing that excited him the most, we talk about how quickly it got to get to a hundred million users. But when you look at those jump to jumps in innovation that affect just global living standards, typically it'll always take So for example, the industrial revolution that started in the United Kingdom, then took two hundred years to reach India. Right? Then the Internet was created and took ten years to reach India in any meaningful format. And it wasn't until mobile Internet that it really proliferated in India. This was his example. The interesting thing about generative AI and Chatchipiti is it took again weeks now to reach the people in India who were using it, building on top of it, changing their ways of life. So it's the adoption, but where the adoption is happening as well, it's much more equalized. Is that something that you've witnessed and seen? I think that's a true observation. I think we are also though concerned as an organisation about the three point two billion people on the planet who have coverage and access to the mobile internet but don't use it. And there are root causes to that. And we, as an organization, want to ensure that as we move forward with this technology or any technology, even just the acceleration of digitization, that we're not leaving people behind. So we have a very significant focus ourselves as an organization and all of our mobile operators really around how do we address that usage gap. And the underlying factors range from affordability of handsets. So that's the hardware part of the problem. Yeah. And then literacy, relevancy of content, which is could be solved with AI. So think about app development and how you could accelerate it in multiple languages and contexts. Yes. Now using this technology, so I think it's interesting. We don't want the usage gap to persist, we want to address it and maybe AI is part of the solution to do that. Now, and fascinating. I'm gonna do my own piece of market research here. And this is something that's occurred to me interviewing numbers of guests this week. Okay. Somebody said to me AI is only limited by human imagination. Right. And I ask every single guest, okay, we know what it's going to do for the industry, we know what it can do for the world, we're having these discussions this week. But I've asked this question to around sixteen people now and had a unique answer every single time. Oh, maybe I should take my headphone off. I don't hear what she says. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But Laura, for you as an individual in your everyday life, what are you using generative AI for? So in in a work context, we are using it this year for the first time, on contact us, pages on our website. There's an AI enabled chatbot to help people who need help registering or getting around the show floor, those sorts of things. So it is to a large degree propping up our customer service element of this program. There are lots of plans to use it further over the course of the next year, but that's really the main one for us and it's really relevant to this show. My personal life, I haven't even started using it Okay. Well, you're very busy. So the the the two kind of intertwine, I guess. And I will tell you that I come here I you know, this year especially, you come here, you get really really inspired by what you see. But I'm a writer by trade. I'm a communicator. So I have a maybe personally a tiny resistance To trying it, because I don't wanna know it's better than me. Stringing words together. But we'll see. We'll see. Gail? Well, know, so Amdocs aside, cause we are all in. I think it could be interesting to talk about how we, my organization, the marketing organization has embraced AI. I would dare say without offending anybody, even before the Amdocs technology people implemented it because we the first capabilities that were available were more, let's say, lending themselves to the marketing domain because it's about writing content creation and imagery, which is a big part of what we produce. And we and this what you see behind us, this entire booth was produced by my internal team unlike previous teams where we had to hire graphic designers and video editors and video art creators and everything. So the amount of work that we do on the marketing side, which is supported by generative AI has been profound. It's not necessarily that now we need ninety percent less people. By definition, almost we are understaffed by now we can handle bigger loads and we can produce more and we can be more cost efficient and we can be more original. I think if you look at this booth again, without of course I'm promoting it, but I think the imagery that you see is not something that you would see in any image bank, right? You wouldn't find it because we created it based on our prompts. So I think that for marketing teams all over the world, I think that's a major leap forward on a personal basis, which how it started this journey. I use it for my vacations. I use it for research. I use it for image creation during presentation making. I use it all over. I do have to say that I actually found a very interesting and ordained reason for friction, why a lot of people don't use it. Many, IT departments are blocking the access to chat GPTs in the office because of security concerns, which are true. But it's like your employees have the power or have the access to be super employees and you're blocking it. So stop, solve the security issues and give them access. And I think that's a, that's a like people between nine to five, so to speak, cannot use generative AI. It's like between nine to five, your employees will be slow. I don't think so. So I think that's a big big, small, but big thing. It is a small, but big thing. It's a really big thing. I would ask you a question, Gail. Go ahead. So generative AI is everywhere. Yeah. When I get back to Canada, back to Oakville, I will be talking to my children about generative AI for probably the next month. It'll certainly help them get to sleep. I am not a robot. I'll be part I'll be just doing interviews with them. They'll say, mommy, daddy's lost it. But what else have you seen at the show other than generative AI, Gail? Because it it's everywhere. It's, you know, it's interesting and hit me maybe on day two, which was yesterday, right? In the previous years, and I've been going to the show for a very long time since two thousand and six, think consecutive. Thank you for that. Wow. I started in the startup booths and I ended up here now. In the last few years, five g and the five g banner was everywhere. Now look around you, even visually, you don't see the like words five g and, but what you do see are the use cases. So I think it's really cool as an industry that we're not just shouting the buzzword and talking about the frequency because nobody cares from a customer perspective. They care about what they can do. And I think what you see around are all the mature applications that people figured out how five gs can enable, that five gs can enable. And I think that's super cool. It's like, it's the real thing. So beyond five gs, it's not a six gs. It's the implementation of real use cases, valuable use case in real life. When did you Laura, when did you as an organization and as the CMO of the GSMA realize that this was going to be the thing at the show? Because it must When did it sort of When did you say to your team, hey, it's gonna be all Gen AI this year. When did it occur to you? So we start planning for next year's edition now. Right. And so we focus on themes all year long. We have the benefit of the GSMA of having a membership base and many working groups. And so we have voices and conversation all year long where themes and topics are bubbling up all the time all the time all the time. We, in the summer before this edition, so let's call it July twenty three Yeah. Started having serious conversations around what does the tagline for the show need to be. So we decided on future first. That then begins to kind of cast our vision forward into what are the themes for speaking. And as we looked around, as we listened in on those conversations from members, AI was just it's just undeniable at the moment. Yeah. And everybody knew, right? We all, you didn't have to be, you didn't have to use generative AI to know that generative AI was gonna be here. But I've never seen anything quite like it. And I think if I quote you correctly here, Lara, you said it's a step change in humanity. Hundred percent. Yeah. I remember so I'm newer to this industry. I come out of financial services and energy broadcast a little bit. When we were talking about the metaverse last year, I thought that was the biggest thing. And it feels like that conversation went off of a cliff. Now, I'm not making a declaration there about the technology or the use cases for the metaverse. That's still important technology, web three stuff. But it's just AI feels much more pervasive. Yes. Than that conversation. And it's cross industry and it's all the way down to education. And you talked about before, and I actually be interested in something that we exchanged online. The issue is education will need to be different because in the past you had to study mathematics, then maybe do a degree in computer science and then become a developer and then be able to be like, this is your path to the industry. Now you just have to learn good English and you can be a developer. Now you don't have to be. So education system will definitely, or hopefully most likely change. And what we talked about in one of the panels, never too young to lead, which I participated in The question that I was asked was, how do we open up this industry to make it accessible for young people? And I commented, it's something that I think you should or can help on is that we're kind of a closed club, right? Nobody outside our industries in the show, who's not a professional, didn't pay a lot of money, who flew specifically. And I would say not identical, but similar shows like CS are open to the public. So maybe we can have a week of, and then a week of, right? A week of open and a week. But do you think that's kind of necessary to get the talent that we want in our industry versus other industries? Absolutely. But I think there are some things that we've done in the last couple of years and I can talk about some things we're doing on the show floor this year. Okay. So that panel existed because we wanted to bring that diverse thinking to the show floor. Forty five percent of our speakers are women, which is an astronomical number compared to where we've been in the in the past. It's a reflection of our intentionality and also the direction the the direction of travel in the industry. We've got a talent arena on the show floor, which is sponsored by Mobile World Capital, which is that foundation in Barcelona that keeps the MWC conversation going all year long. And that talent arena brought in young developers who were confronted with challenges and tried to solve them on the spot with the intention of introducing them to prospective employers. We've also got a DevCon on the floor relative to Open Gateway. So there are ways that we're opening this platform up so that it's less mobile ecosystem Yeah. And more, future first digital transformation and everybody impacted with that. Having said that, imagine the opportunities that AI opens up from an education perspective, where just little girls have been counted out of STEM Yeah. For years because we've been told we're not good at math. Yeah. What if you didn't have to believe that anymore? Because maybe that barrier either gets removed or how you learn it changes Absolutely. And how you interact with it. And so we can bring new voices to the table all the time. But that there's an intentionality in our program that I think we have a moral imperative to continue building out. Yeah. And then I'm just super excited about the impacts of AI on things like education. By the way, interesting point. Coming up, International Women's Day. So we did some primary research on the involvement of women in generative AI. And without doing a spoiler on the results, because we will be releasing them during on, I think it's next on the fifth, if I believe. The, there is still a gap between the usage of generative AI between females and males, which inherently creates even a bigger gap because then the collective intelligence of generative AI is based more on the usage of men. And I think your push to include more women is super important for that reason also. We did a LinkedIn live webinar a couple of weeks before MWC with as the sponsor, where we talked about bias in AI. Yeah. And how we will just take what exists today and replicate it in an AI world unless we ensure that the people participating in AI look like the Yeah. And so we that's an area where we have to be super intentional about including people, raising the skill level for all of us and finding ways to include everyone in this conversation. Because if you get it wrong, it's really difficult to undo. One hundred percent. That's the huge issue here. And I remember we was talking about youth initiative a year ago, Lara. What other social societal projects at the GSMA undertaking from this point forward? So we have a track at the show called Diversity for Tech. And I made a promise on that stage last year that I would bring that conversation to the main stage, which is our biggest stage, so the big keynote area. Yeah. So we did that this year and we had a conversation about diversity, inclusion, online safety, AI ethics. So, that kind of work continues. We also do a bunch of work through our foundation using, you know, tech for good kind of programs. Yes. There's so much going on. This this continues to be the main conversation though, AI and ethics in that realm. That's wonderful. And what are the plans beyond I don't want think too far beyond this week, but what are the rest of the plans for the year? Obviously you're going to be back in Las Vegas. I see Seoul on the agenda. What else is the GSMA putting out there in the next twelve months? It's amazing, isn't it? I don't wanna wish this week away. No. Of course. But we are we are past the halfway mark, aren't Yes. We could we could probably start celebrating anytime soon. We will do MWC Shanghai in June, and then we'll be in Vegas in October, as you mentioned. Then we will be in Gagali at the end of October. Gagali is a really important platform where we talk a lot about that m for d work, the mobile for good work. Yeah. One of the key elements of that conversation in Gagali will be addressing the usage gap, and talking about innovations like mobile money, etcetera, and how, well, that's a solution to many problems. To the unbanked, to small, medium sized enterprises in low and middle income economies. We we also run the m three sixty series. So, those are more regional smaller regional events that focus on very local challenges. Yeah. They might be fair share or taxation, that sort of thing. Yeah. And so there's a number of places around the globe where we'll be doing that as well. Yeah. And then a host of other activities from the GSMA. It's incredible. Participated in Mexico City. Oh, thank you. And I believe you were there in Mexico City. I was. I was. We'll be back in Mexico City this year. We'll be in Baku. We will be in Seoul. We'll we will be in Doha at the end of the year is new for us. Yeah. And you're not gonna bring it home to Toronto? No. Not yet. No? Not yet. But I am determined to get a little bit more of Canada. He just wants to stop traveling. It's completely self serving. Don't listen to him. I have a know, I actually I'm there in in April, so we'll have to have coffee yesterday. Give me a shout. Okay. What was the the place I go to in Bronte? Resto Plank, for the place. Oh, that's a lovely spot. Nice choice. Nice choice. You know, it's interesting you talked about diversity inclusion. I think one of the most exciting things that are happening with this technology is that the opportunities in the past were based many times on circumstance. So where you were born and the circumstance of the family you were born into and the capabilities they had pretty much dictated what you could do. And yes, you could work super hard and close the gap. But if you had to be with your parents and their small medium business and help them and not go to high school or maybe skip a day or two and then your studies weren't excellent. And then the university you got accepted to was maybe a mid tier and not the higher tier. And then that kind of the domino many times started when you were young. I think that technology will give everybody superpowers that will enable them truly to be what they can be. So I don't think it's like level the playing field because that's, I don't think that's what we're striving for. We want talent to be, what it can. And there are some people who'll be always better than others, but I think it really will give people opportunities worldwide to be whatever they can, whatever they want to be, because they can be a developer, they can be a designer, even though they didn't study mathematics and computer science, or they didn't study graphic design software. So I think that's amazing future potential. And yes, we have to take care of all the ethical part of it and regulate it somehow without killing it. And I think we as an industry have to make sure connectivity is available everywhere because that means that's like the, you know, table stakes. And hopefully I think we're getting there and I think we're also getting the help of also transmissions from above earth to help us real, to get real coverage. And I think that will make it even more interesting. So I'm super hopeful and optimistic for the future. Do you feel like if you had to weigh it more dangerous versus more potential, how would you rate it? I love that question. Ninety five percent of the world's covered by a mobile network. So I wouldn't call that a solved problem, but we're well on the way to solve. So you're right, access isn't the problem. It's those underlying issues related to usage. It's hardware, etcetera. How I feel about the future is inspired and excited. I think I've met here over the course of the week regulators and policy makers who are working together with business on the issues of regulation and ethics, which you're right. There's a tension between wanting innovation and recognizing that it needs some regulatory framework to keep us safe. Do the regulators get it? The regulators get it? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, regulators that I've spoken to this week see the responsibility they have, but they also see the opportunity to solve some of the problems they have in their own countries Yeah. Relative to size of workforce, availability of workforce Talent, yeah. Talent, that sort of thing. So, I think I'm very inspired by the conversations that happen in a place like this. MWC is a really unique combination of you mentioned CES earlier. Yeah. It's a dangerous thing when a marketer starts using comparison to explain their product. But a little bit, This is like a CES combined with a WEF, combined with a UN. That's what MWC is. So it's one place to come and have all of those conversations. That's actually That's worked. Right? That explanation worked. Okay. Good. Excellent. And I think that's the unique formula that is MWC. So you're having all the sides of the conversations here, as opposed to maybe a one-sided conversation. I feel really inspired by the whole thing. And really grateful to get to be a part of it. Wow. It's wonderful. And it's a very optimistic we're almost out of time, Nora, I'm conscious that Wow. That you have a lot of it. Was fast. We could talk here all day. Yeah. Really good. And it's it's wonderful to have you back. And you know how we finish these things, if you recall. You remember. Yeah. The TGI to go. So we had to go back through all the questions we asked you before and make sure we don't repeat them because that would be a bit monotonous. So we've got some nice fresh TGI to go questions for both of you. Okay. Awesome. And so let's do it. TGI to go. Right. Can or niece? Can. Yeah. Did you ever attend MWC when it was in Can? No. But they're both beautiful spots, so I don't think you can get that question really wrong. And I'm going to Can in a couple of months. So I was in, I can tell when was my first year in MWC because it was the first year after can. Yep. Two thousand and six then. Sixth. Yes. So that was a, so I still have to go there. So that would be my answer. Would you rather watch sci fi or a good comedy? A good comedy. Have you seen any good comedies recently? Any recommendations for my long flight back home? I think we're living sci fi, so I would go with comedy. Yeah. That very smooth. That was cool. I like that. Beyonce or Taylor Swift? Are you a Swifty? Don't lean in either of those directions, but I have to say that I really I mean, both women are powerhouses. Right? It's easy to respect both of them. What Taylor Swift has done this year though, whether you like her or her music or not, I appreciate her her tenacity. I appreciate the way that she speaks about hard things, respectfully, but directly. And I do think that she is a role model. Yeah. It's it's it's really good. And you know, when you talk about her resilience and and her hard work, you know, I do a week full of podcasts and that feels tough. The amount of concerts she's done on that tour is insane. Yeah. So when the next time you complain, I'll say, but Taylor doesn't. But Taylor Swift. Yeah. I Everything that Laura said, I completely agree with. She's an amazing personality and she's well, she I mean, a person going against the industry that supports her and actually winning and then going to the next level is nothing less than amazing. But you wouldn't catch me listening to her songs. Not because I don't like them. Mean, they're cool songs. It's just not my type. Beyonce, I love the Verizon commercial. I think that's That in my mind when we first drafted that one, because we've had Verizon here this week and their Super Bowl Beyonce campaign was incredible. Gorgeous. Incredible. And my final question, but I think you've given me an answer already. If you're gonna take a vacation after the show to recuperate, would you go to Thailand or Antigua? I would go to Antigua because I need to sleep. You need to sleep. But you said you were going to the south of France. Right? Yes. That's true. That's for work. But that's business. Yeah. Okay. Go. I'll pick Maldives. I know you didn't ask ask, but I'm answering. That's that's the that's the direction, the Maldives. Somewhere restful. I need I need white sand. I need blue. And then I need nothing else in between and that's it. Yeah. And a nice cocktail maybe. Yeah. Exactly. So I wanna thank you, Laura. I wanna thank you, Gail. Thank you, Matt. I wanna say congratulations on just a stunning show this Amazing. Amazing. Absolutely stunning. And I wanna add to that, by the way. So, as organization, of course, as a company, we go to and we are asked to participate in many. This is the Super Bowl. This is where this is also from as a marketing organization, this is the biggest event that we partake in. We love the vibe. As we finish this week, we're I'm my head is already, how can we talk this year? And I was thinking the same the year before and I was thinking the so it always challenges us, which is what we love to be challenged. And I and I love the venue. And so thank you. Thank you for keeping it up so so good and and and pushing us to to bring even more every year. Thank you. I'm super inspired by what you guys do and appreciate the opportunity to chat and very glad that Amdocs is a significant part of that vibe. Thank Amazing. Thank you, Laura. You're welcome. Thank you, Matt.