AT&T Said It Generated 5x Return on AI Investment

BARCELONA, March 6, 2026 — AT&T, the Dallas-based telecommunications carrier, said Tuesday it processes 27 billion tokens daily across its enterprise operations and generates a five-fold return in free cash flow within the same year of investment on every dollar spent on artificial intelligence.

Andy Markus, AT&T's chief data and artificial intelligence officer, said MIT research found 95 percent of AI proof-of-concept projects return zero dollars in investment. AT&T skips extended pilot phases and deploys AI directly into production operations across its network, back office and customer service divisions, he said.

"AT&T is not a pilot company," Markus said, speaking at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) here.