Ericsson has now announced the launch of its generative AI-based NetCloud Assistant (ANA). The industry's first virtual expert for agent-based 5G AI for enterprises not only represents a further development of NetCloud to enable effortless management of both wireless WAN and private 5G solutions, but according to Ericsson, it will also fundamentally change the way enterprises deploy, optimize, and manage their 5G networks in the future.

User-controlled tool becomes strategic partner

The integration of agent-based AI transforms ANA from a user-controlled tool into a strategic partner supported by a team of AI agents. By interpreting higher-level intentions, ANA can handle complex workflows, implement administrator decisions, and learn in real time. According to Ericsson, this reduces the workload for lean IT and OT teams while improving network reliability and user experience.  

Agentic organizational hierarchy

One of ANA's most important AI features is its “agentic organizational hierarchy”: ANA is supported by multiple orchestrator and functional AI agents that can plan and execute (under the guidance of the administrator).

The orchestrator agents will be deployed in stages, starting with a troubleshooting agent planned for the fourth quarter of 2025, followed by configuration, deployment, and policy agents planned for 2026. These orchestrators will be connected to task, process, knowledge, and decision agents within an integrated agent framework.

Automated troubleshooting

ANA's Troubleshooting Orchestrator includes automated workflows that resolve key issues identified by Ericsson support teams, partners, and customers, such as offline devices and poor signal quality. This feature is scheduled to be introduced in the fourth quarter of 2025 and is expected to reduce downtime and customer support cases by more than 20 percent.

Multimodal content generation, explainable AI, and enhanced AIOps insights

According to Ericsson, ANA can now generate dynamic charts to visually represent trends and complex query results with multiple data points. ANA also displays real-time process feedback and reveals the steps taken by AI agents to improve transparency and trust. In addition, NetCloud AIOps is being expanded to enable the isolation and correlation of fault, performance, configuration, and billing anomalies for Wireless WAN and NetCloud SASE.

For Ericsson Private 5G, NetCloud is expected to provide service health analytics, including KPI monitoring and connectivity diagnostics for user devices.

Vision of fully autonomous, self-optimizing 5G enterprise networks

Pankaj Malhotra, Head of WWAN & Security at Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions, explains: "By introducing agent-based AI into NetCloud, we are enabling enterprises to simplify deployment and operation while improving reliability, performance, and user experience. More importantly, we are laying the foundation for our vision of fully autonomous, self-optimizing 5G enterprise networks that can drive the next generation of enterprise innovation."

Creating added value

The integration of Ericsson Private 5G into the NetCloud platform is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2025, offering powerful benefits to 5G enterprise customers, including access to AI capabilities, real-time feature availability, simplified lifecycle management, greater agility in multisite deployments, and enhanced administrator controls with different user roles and permissions.

NetCloud serves as the foundation for future agent-based AI capabilities designed to eliminate friction and create value for the enterprise. These innovations directly address critical barriers to adoption as more industrial companies leverage private 5G for business-critical connectivity. With this integration, Ericsson enables companies to overcome these challenges and realize the full potential of 5G in IT and OT environments.

Making enterprise connectivity smarter, simpler, and more adaptable

Manish Tiwari, Head of Enterprise 5G at Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions, adds: "With the integration of Ericsson Private 5G into the NetCloud platform, we are taking a major step forward in making enterprise connectivity smarter, simpler, and more adaptable.

Building on powerful AI fundamentals, seamless lifecycle management, and the ability to scale securely across locations, we offer the flexibility to further accelerate digital transformation across industries. This is about more than just connectivity: it's about providing businesses with the mission-critical foundation they need to securely operate IT and OT systems and unlock the next wave of innovation for their business."

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