Transforming how telecom plans are created and experienced
Communications service providers are facing a shift that goes beyond pricing pressure or competitive intensity. Customers now engage across more moments, channels, and contexts – and they increasingly expect relevant offers to appear immediately, not weeks later. As AI-driven and agentic experiences reshape how customers interact with brands, the ability to dynamically recommend and evolve telecom plans at the speed of the interaction is becoming a critical business capability.
At the same time, industry momentum around TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA) is giving communications providers a shared framework for modernizing how business and technology capabilities come together. ODA is no longer just a blueprint for IT transformation – it is increasingly shaping how decision-making and customer engagement evolve across the enterprise.
Why telecom plan design has become a critical challenge
Designing and promoting telecom plans is no longer a periodic exercise tied to quarterly launches. Market conditions can shift in weeks or even days due to competitor moves, regulatory changes, or pricing pressures. Yet many organizations still rely on largely manual, siloed processes to create new offers or adapt existing ones.
These traditional approaches often involve lengthy handoffs between marketing, commercial teams, and IT. As a result, it can take weeks for new plans to reach customers, even when the underlying market insights already exist. This gap between insight and execution can limit responsiveness and increase the risk of customer dissatisfaction or churn.
“Speed and relevance now define successful telecom plans as much as price.”
How industry leaders are approaching the problem
Leading communications providers are beginning to focus less on static plan catalogs and more on dynamic decisioning. Rather than asking which plans should be launched months in advance, they are exploring how plans can be continuously shaped based on customer context, market signals, and business objectives.
This shift is reflected in the TM Forum Catalyst, ODA Prism: Recommending the ultimate telecom plan – Phase II, to be demonstrated at DTW Ignite, June 23-25, 2026 in Copenhagen. The project builds on earlier work to show how ODA-aligned components can be orchestrated to support smarter plan creation and recommendation. By applying ODA principles, the Catalyst illustrates how communications providers can move faster from market insight to action – aligning marketing, commercial, and operational decisions so plans can be created, refined, and activated while opportunities are still live.
Early in this ODA-aligned approach to telecom plan creation is the idea of agentic decisioning, where autonomous or semi-autonomous agents help evaluate options, refine recommendations, and support teams in moving from analysis to action. This perspective aligns closely with emerging practices in agentic marketing and decisioning, where orchestration and governance remain central considerations.
The role of agentic capabilities in plan recommendation
Within the Catalyst, agentic capabilities are explored as a means of supporting – not replacing – human decision-makers. Autonomous agents can help assess eligibility criteria, pricing constraints, and promotion rules in near real time, while automated workflows manage approvals and activation steps keeping a human in the loop.
This approach enables marketing and commercial teams to iterate more quickly without losing oversight or control. For example, plan creation and promotion cycles that previously took several weeks can be significantly shortened, while still allowing marketers to shape messaging and customer experience outcomes.
Crucially, the Catalyst shows how agentic decisioning can be applied within an ODA-aligned model in a way that business and technology teams can both trust – making dynamic plan decisions more operationally realistic rather than theoretical.
Practical considerations for communications business leaders
For business leaders, the takeaway is not about adopting a single technology or tool, but about rethinking how plan decisions are made and executed. Leaders should consider where manual handoffs slow down responsiveness, and how decisioning could be embedded closer to the point of customer engagement.
Another consideration is governance. As agentic approaches become more prevalent, clear guardrails are essential to ensure alignment with brand, regulatory, and financial objectives. The Catalyst highlights how ODA can serve as a common language between business and IT leaders as these changes take shape.
Finally, collaboration matters. TM Forum Catalysts are designed to test ideas in an open, industry-led environment. By participating in initiatives like this one, providers can learn from peers, validate assumptions, and accelerate innovation with lower risk.
See the Catalyst in action at DTW Ignite
ODA Prism: Recommending the ultimate telecom plan – Phase II Catalyst will be showcased at DTW Ignite, taking place June 23–25 in Copenhagen. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore the project, engage with contributors, and discuss how ODA-aligned decisioning can support more responsive plan strategies.
Learn more about the Catalyst project here: https://www.tmforum.org/catalysts/projects/C26.0.917/oda-prism-recommending-the-ultimate-telecom-plan-phase-ii