Ericsson Enterprise Wireless is integrating agentic AI into its flagship NetCloud platform, designed to help IT teams manage the unpredictability of wireless WAN and private 5G connections. The update centers on the new NetCloud Assistant (ANA), which will get a series of AI-driven “agents” in the coming months.
Troubleshooting AI agents aim to automate support issues and reduce downtime
The first one will be a troubleshooting agent, designed with automated workflows based on issues flagged by Ericsson’s support teams, partners, and customers.
“It’s very focused on day-two operations, which is troubleshooting a network, and you could call it AIOps for 5G-based networks,” said Pankaj Malhotra, head of wireless WAN and security, Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions. “The real focus is to be able to assist that administrator who has built up that network using Ericsson-Cradlepoint devices and to be able to go back and figure out what is going on inside the network if there’s an anomaly.”
Malhotra added that this capability could reduce downtime and customer support cases by more than 20%.
Taking on 5G complexity
This push is part of Ericsson’s bigger bet on 5G expertise. Malhotra explained that, unlike wired networks, cellular-based access is inherently variable.
“Wireless is a shared medium, and so because it’s a shared medium, as more traffic comes in, you can expect your network performance to vary. It’s not predictable,” he said. “So what it would be able to do is to go back and predict, based upon the information that is already gathered, based upon the traffic flows that are going through the system, about what you can expect out of that link. And then how can you go back and smoothen it, smoothing it in advance, to be able to go back and apply quality of service.”
Future AI agents will expand into configuration, deployment, and policy, extending across NetCloud’s secure access service edge (SASE) and Ericsson’s Private 5G platform.
Expanding enterprise integration
Ericsson is also folding its private network portfolio into NetCloud Manager, unifying what had been managed separately. “With this, we bring it under the same fold, which means that all of the capabilities that we are developing, including ANA and our agent architecture, now applies to our private network deployments as well,” Malhotra said.
The move builds on Ericsson’s 2020 acquisition of Cradlepoint and the subsequent steady integration work. More recently, Ericsson added clientless zero-trust network access (ZTNA) to NetCloud SASE, making it easier for third-party and BYOD users to connect securely.
That timing lines up with a broader industry trend. Analyst firm Dell’Oro pointed out that enterprises are doubling down on AI-ready networking strategies.
“With SASE revenue climbing 22% year-over-year during the second quarter, enterprises are clearly prioritizing AI-ready branch strategies,” wrote Mauricio Sanchez, director of enterprise security and networking at Dell’Oro Group.
Ericsson’s agentic AI push comes as other major players double down on enterprise AI strategies. Just this spring, Verizon Business rolled out its Verizon AI Connect suite, teaming with Vultr, Google Cloud, and Meta to help businesses scale AI workloads. The common thread is clear: networks have to keep pace with the growing demands of AI.