Bharti Airtel rolls out small AI model for 30,000 field engineers, sees ₹30-45 cr cost savings

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel said its nearly 30,000 field engineers are using an in-house AI small language model (SLM) for various applications, which has also led to significant cost savings.

“…this quarter, we were able to make a meaningful difference in our workmanship across 30,000 field engineers with the help of AI,” Shashwat Sharma, MD & CEO, Airtel India, said during the Q1FY27 post-earnings call with analysts. “We are putting a small language model, that works on the engineer’s endpoint device, which is a regular handset.”

“This is a breakthrough for the engineering team, which we are using in-house.”