A significant theme at the recent Mobile World Congress was artificial intelligence. There were plenty of robots, driverless cars and digital assistants to attract visitors’ attention to the new user experiences AI will enable (and the new mobile network users, in the case of the robots). But this is, underneath the glitz and the sci-fi, a trade show for mobile operators, so in the more serious debates, the focus was heavily on how MNOs can harness AI to make their networks more efficient and to deliver new services. This was their AI comfort zone – taking concepts of automation and intelligence which started with SON (self-organizing networks) and self-healing and are now developing with new 5G use cases in mind.…