Panel

Title: Agents for Networks, Networks for Agents: Is Agent-to-Agent the Next Big Thing, or the Next Big Hype

Abstract: In 2026 the “agentic telco” moved from slideware to field trials:

• Operators: at MWC, Deutsche Telekom reported a 95% cut in network management event times with its RAN Guardian agent. SoftBank and SK Telecom are training their own telecom models.
• Agent-to-agent: TM Forum Catalyst projects are testing agent-to-agent runtimes (A2A-T).
• Standards: 3GPP’s 6G work now covers how agents are discovered, identified and given access to network capabilities. ITU has made “AI and Communication” one of the six IMT-2030 usage scenarios.
• Reality check: only about 16% of telecom generative-AI deployments actually touch network operations.

The panel looks at both directions. First, agents for networks: what LLM-based agents really add to the closed loops and intent-based automation we already have. Then, networks for agents: what 6G must provide when agents, including ones acting in the physical world, become the main users of the network. In between sits agent-to-agent, which could become the interoperability layer of autonomous networks or simply the next integration headache.