So welcome back to the great indoors, Amdocs' Amdocs' number one podcast here at MWC twenty twenty six. The show continues. The great conversations continue. And I'm really excited to welcome my next guest to the show. His name is mister Amit Nag. He's from TELUS and the vice president of connected product connected products and experiences. Welcome, Amdocs. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Yeah. It's great. And also, no stranger to the podcast. He's gonna help me and cohost me. He's a great guy, Lagoo. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Right. Let's get straight into it. Amdocs, right? Thank you. I essentially manage teams at TELUS who build software products, primarily in two areas. First is entertainment where we work on what we do in traditional TV as well as in the bundling and streaming. And teams that are building platforms for the future of the smart home and how we create an aggregated smart home. I've been here at TELUS for about five years working on these kinds of problems. Prior to that, I've been mainly focused in the entertainment space, building what was one of the first virtual MVPDs in the US market, while at PlayStation, and then a decade before that, actually getting media companies ready for their future in streaming. Wow. Wow. That's really cool. That's really cool. And and how's the show been for you so far? It's been amazing. I I'm kind of hoarse from having I've been doing demos in loud rooms for several days, so happy to be sitting down for a change. Now let's go let's get straight into it. And we just talked about this before and I think we're gonna start with that. And it was a term that you just that we just talked about, Amdocs, but the grand re aggregation. Maybe that Marx and term will Yeah. Step. I certainly hope so because you heard it here first. But take our listeners through that whole vision, Amdocs, if you could. It may be that I'm getting old, but I'm nostalgic for an earlier time. When things seem simpler, right, anything you brought into your home plugged into WiFi and worked. All your TV came on a box and you didn't have to worry about what service it was on and whether you had a subscription to it. You just switched to the channel and watched it. Having worked in this in a in a decade on helping media companies, for one, go direct to consumer, we were, as a society, amazed by the amount of choice and creativity that brought to the front. But we're also seeing a bit of the backlash now, the the pendulum swinging back, that in entertainment as well as in smart home in two areas where your life is now a mess of too many apps, too many subscriptions, and an incredibly complex user experience. So we'd love to view a future, a hopeful future, where we have a re aggregated simple experience subscription, but maybe with the choice this time layered on top. Yeah. Yeah. And and I we just walked through it, the use case that you showed, myself and Raku when we were just chatting. Just so take our listeners through that specific use case because it was quite illuminating. So I'm very lucky to be working with teams who are building some really impressive things in the world of this grand re aggregation. One has been in the entertainment and streaming world. This create this discovery and viewing experience in this disaggregated streaming experience. The other has been in smart home where we've just been showing off what we have built when you bring in AI and generative UI as the way to access this complex world of a thousand devices in a thousand homes. So not only we now have a platform that brings in WiFi, local IoT, ZigBee, we have all those devices into one place. It then creates an AI layer that helps you manage and control it, but then also the right UI to interact with. In this case, I think I showed you two examples. One where I just asked my AI, what's been happening in my home? I've been hearing some sounds and it went and checked all of my sensors, figured out which were the cameras that might be pointing at the roof, watched the video on them, and then told me there was a raccoon there and showed me a clip of the raccoon. Yeah. Right? And I think it might have showed you another use case where, you then say, hey. Can you do something and warn me about it? And it can actually create a UI for what to do the next time it sees a raccoon, like, flush your light. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so That was the generative UI, and I like that Yes. Yeah. Sorry, Rafi. So may there was attempts to have a unified let's call it smart home version one to bring all connected devices of different kinds by actually, it's a purpose previously to be able to manage to be able to manage cameras, security systems, sensors, providing a single UI, even if I remember correctly, we used to have those specialized tablets to essentially watch all of them together. From a telcos point of view, the attempt was, you know, it's maybe not as grand aggregation as what you're envisioning, But there was a vision about bringing all that together and provide a single source and also it's managed, also it's connected, so it's connected to your information as well. How do you see the difference from that, let's call it the version one Yeah. To the AI era of, what you're dreaming. Yeah. No. It's a fantastic question. And and the one of the reasons I'm at TELUS is because TELUS has actually lived that transition. Right? We've been in the smart home space, for example, since twenty eighteen and have been providing this service in more of that, let's say, call it vertically integrated model of, you know, cameras and panels and things that are designed to work together, where you have telco grade kind of infrastructure behind it and then installation and support and all of that. More a more of a closed system. Correct. Correct. And the what consumers today really want is an open system where I can bring what I want, I can bring my subscriptions if I want to, I can get it packaged if I want to. What today between protocol availability and the really the ability with GenAI and generative UI to put a simple UX in front of that vast complexity is really what's making a difference. I see. That's that's materially different. But I and I think that leads perfectly. We talked about the grand re aggregation, the convergence in the home, how AI is powering that. Let's focus a little bit more on the customer experience Yeah. Because TELUS is really redefining that customer experience, right, in in with all of those components. Give us your insights on that if you could. Probably many different aspects of it, but I would say that the one thing that is pretty universal is in the how, you know, different apps and different let's say, whether in the media world or in the smart home world can build amazing deep integration experiences. Like, if I wanna interact with my camera, Nest probably has a great UX for it. But very often, I'm trying to deal with my whole home. My front door is not a camera. It's a camera. It's a porch light. It's a door lock and a two way talk button on it. So when I'm trying to open my door, I'm not trying to re interact with any one of these apps. I'm trying to create an app that has the camera view from one, the unlock button from the other, and the turn on light from the other. Right? And so the ability at the aggregated level to create those unique experiences is what makes it special. Right? So why TELUS? Why can't a garage company do this? And how do you actually see, you know, the innovation and connecting with Thales' DNA about as a service provider and also an innovator in the industry. How is it different than having a software provider doing it as a vendor? Yeah. And and this is a really good, question, and I would approach it from two ways. Right? First is what is the problem we're trying to solve? Right? Because, smart home devices are at, like, a ten, twenty percent penetration rate. What we're trying to see is, like, you know, why can't this technology be democratized? And the way that's happened in the past is things like, I mean, mobile phones and in home WiFi have been installed, subsidized, supported by telcos in a way that it's not just your tech savvy uncle who's done it. Everybody has it. So that's part one of the model. You need that model to kinda get to that eighty, ninety percent pen rate. The other part that you need is a, the, you know, capability technology, etcetera, which TELUS, I think, uniquely has, But also as a telco, the visibility to not just the IoT piece, which a lot of people have, but also the other half, which is WiFi, every year, laptops and phones and everything. So telcos are unique, they're like your IT provider for the home. They're wiring up your phone. You need someone to help you do that. So those two factors I think the business model and the actual physical infrastructure in the home is what enables it. That's perfect. That's a perfect answer. Now let's let's talk about something. Let's talk about a robust partner ecosystem to enable this entire vision. And and I think it was When you come to a show like this, there could be partners that were never considered or thought about, we didn't even know. Give me your thoughts on on that robust ecosystem. Yeah. So, again, this kind of thing needs partners in two ways. Like, for this to work, it's an ecosystem play, and player like TELUS is just merely starting the flywheel. For the flywheel to truly take off, a, the vision has to be understood and bought off on. The actual we have to be an example to show the world as a beacon. This can work. TELUS is showing you an example. But we are looking, a, for other CSPs globally to follow because, you know, TELUS can do it, but if you get enough momentum of others following the vision, coming along, that builds the true grow global, you know, kind of coalition of standards. Yeah. And that also then brings on more and more device partners, OEMs, etcetera, because that is the the virtuous cycle we're trying to start here. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That makes total sense. That makes total sense. Now, we talked at the beginning and we talked about your history. What lessons lessons from the past in streaming media can be applied to to this scenario? A lot of them because I think part of the one example I bring up in in creating the first virtual MVPD in the US, which required at the time nine big tell, you know, media companies to all agree for the first time ever to give rights over to this com company that had never been in that space to give streaming rights, right, which was a brand new thing. Now how did that happen? It took almost five years for that to happen, but it required a lining up all these partnerships and no one was ready to go first, but seeing that everybody else was on the threshold, all you needed is one partnership to then just cross the threshold to let the dams open Yes. And let the flood of partnerships take off. We are at a similar juncture here where we have seen the first sets of large partnerships on the OEM side and then soon on the CSD side come through, And I think that's what you're looking for next. Wonderful. Now, it's been a pretty busy week. Yeah. And I always like to ask my guests about the future and what they speculate. If we were back here, let's just give a time for three years from now, and the three of us were sat here having a similar discussion. What do you think the big not theme, what would you like to see or expect to see from the industry to your perspective? Of course, you can't look anywhere here without seeing AI somewhere. I happened to come back and think of the fact I was building, as I said, you know, neural network models in the nineties. Yeah. And the one takeaway I have from it is what you think of AI as now is not going to be what it is in in a few years. So we think about LLMs and we think about chat interfaces. That is not going to be true literally if I had my way a month from now. Yeah. Right? And that's good. So I do think AI is gonna be a theme, but how we think of it, how we interact with it, what technologies underlie it are completely gonna change in my mind. A term that's come up a lot this week is physical AI. And I can look I I spoke with the CMO at Qualcomm and I look all around me and I see robots Yep. Sensors and new hardware. How do you think that plays into that brand of this application and the connected home? So the theme of the pendulum swinging, which is true of so many cycles. Right? Anytime something comes in, there's enthusiasm, there's momentum, pendulum swings one way, eventually swings back. So one thing that as telco we're preparing for is the swing back on cloud, which is, you know, cloud is amazing, AI is amazing, not all AI needs to run-in the cloud or should run-in the cloud. So a good example is for our cameras, we do the initial preprocessing right on the chip at the camera edge. You get the highest quality, lowest latency privacy because you're not sending images somewhere. We want to, in our next gen, to drive, let's say, face recognition. It shouldn't happen on the on on the cloud. We'd like to happen it in the hub inside your home, so privacy, speed, everything is maintained. So there's a balance here where we think there are some elements which should come back into the physical world of your camera or your robot or wherever, and we've not discovered that yet. That is gonna happen. I think that's really cool. That's really cool. Now we're almost out of time and we And and Raghu will know this. We always like to bring the show to an end with a bit of fun. Alright. And this is the quick fire round we call TGI to go. And I'm gonna basically give you two choices and they and you tell me and and I'm gonna do the same on to Riku as well. You're not getting off the hook. Alright. And you tell me your preference and it just helps our listeners understand you a little better when we leave maybe with a little chuckle. I'm equally scared and and excited. This is the one thing Alright. We never tell the guests until they come on the show. Alright. Okay. Question number one. You live in San Francisco. That's right. So are you a football guy or a basketball guy? Oh my goodness. I'm I'm a neither but more basketball. If there was a third option, what what would it be? Hiking in the in the mountains. Okay. That's a nice one. That's a nice one. Yeah. Same question to Ricky. Hockey. Hockey. Yeah. Downstairs. I live in Dallas. I thought you were at the Leafs. That's something there. Now, we could go for a break for a weekend. Go to see Amdocs for being on the podcast, and we could send you to one city in Europe to spend that weekend. Would it be London or Paris? Oh, London. Lots of friends. Lots of friends. Yeah. That's great. I mean, I lived there for thirty years. Pretty much. So it'd probably be my choice as well. And Paris is lovely, but lots of friends. London as well. Yeah. That's good. Now, there's been obviously, we're in Barcelona. We're gonna have a meal at the airport and we're gonna we're gonna have two choices, tapas or paella. What would it be? I may have to go with the paella because I've just been overdosing on the hamon that I love so much and the tapas. Yeah. And have you had some nice dinners this week and They have all been lovely. Yeah. That's good. I can have some. Yeah. Tapas. Yeah. Tapas is this. Yeah. That sounds good. It's only third day. I think it's Yeah. We're tap Yeah. We're still taping. Instagram or TikTok? Might have to be Instagram. I think that's a pretty consistent answer that we've had with the delegates this week. Is it is it our age segment that's I I did throw that out there as an explanation. Maybe not. I don't know. Instagram. I thought you were just gonna say TikTok then to throw up. Okay. Great. Final question and one I've asked everybody this week. Cats or dogs? I'm a cat person through and through. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I like pets that play hard to get. Yeah. I'm neither cats or dogs, but I have two cats at home and no dogs, so it's cats. You don't you don't you don't like these cats? You don't? Can't say they're in public. And anyway, before we close out Yeah. I really appreciate your time today, mate. It's been great meeting you. It's been a great discussion. What would be some last thoughts you'd leave our listeners with before we sign off today? Oh. Come come by Barcelona. It's a lovely city and great place to get outside the Viera and go check out the city. So yeah. And you're heading back tonight. Right? I am sadly heading back tonight, but I'd love another evening in the city. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Well, and we'll see you here next year, of course. Ragu, any last thoughts from you? I think I think that is going back to your question on three years out, I think AI will be there but invisible in my mind. So I'm curious to see what happens in Mobile Congress next year because it's been the second year of AI more visibly. I think it's more getting into the agent world now. I would like, I think I think it would be fascinating to see next year Mobile World Congress. What would it look like from all of the agentic world working together in a way? And, I learned a new term. It's not autonomous network. It's something even more than I I I can't remember what that term is, but it is more about it's zero human interaction to operate the network. So I would like to see some of that work, and I would like to have actual users on it. Wonderful. Well, I appreciate all your time today, both both of you gentlemen. Have a safe journey back from me. Great meeting you. And I'll see you for some tapas later. Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
