Nokia CUG 2026: vendors must de-risk AI-core innovation and prove its TCO and service value

Analysys Mason attended Nokia’s 32^nd Core User Group 2026, where Nokia demonstrated its latest core network innovations. The event focused on AI, automation, cloud-native and hybrid cloud, and the company’s vision for an AI-native core. Nokia showed strong progress relative to its competitors in some key areas, such as refactoring the core network to support AI and its deployment of hybrid cloud core and core as a service. However, operators generally remain sceptical of longer-term AI-core visions because proof points are still limited. To ensure continued momentum towards an AI-native core network, vendors need to de-risk adoption, encourage experimentation and prove the net value for total cost of ownership (TCO) and monetisation.