Ericsson highlights RAN Automation leadership at MWC2026

With Autonomous Networks set to dominate conversations in Barcelona once again, Ericsson will spotlight its leading market position for bringing AI into the network with a single management and orchestration layer to jump start the Communication Service Provider (CSP) journey to Level 4 autonomy: Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP) and rApps.

EIAP showcases mature standard compliance, multivendor support, telco-grade security and scale. Its users include leading CSPs managing single and multivendor networks, such as AT&T, Swisscom, Telstra, Vodafone and others. Its innovation and success in implementation led to Ericsson being awarded #1 position in in ABI Research’s rankings of RAN Automation Platform Vendors. Already, customers globally such as AT&T have run rApps on the live network through EIAP, and validation is near completion with Swisscom and others for Ericsson AI rApps. Recent advanced testing also shows EIAP integrating and coordinating with Softbank’s AI Orchestrator through R1, highlighting the flexibility of R1, and its ability to managing consumer and enterprise AI workloads as well as those for the network automation. Ericsson is a leading contributor to industry standardization in this area, helping to define and promote the open standards now in use across the industry from the TM Forum and O-RAN Alliance.

Along with the platform, Ericsson’s rApps have delivered results in the real world with CSPs. Ericsson AI rApps have been shown to improve spectral efficiency by up to 8%, save 75% of time in RF optimization, improve speed by 11%, reduce voice drop call rate by 8%, reduce the number of cells with issues by 60% and a range of other advantages over the legacy approach. Ericsson rApps are also awarded by Red Dot, as leading UX interaction to support adoption.

EIAP and Ericsson AI rApps lead the market in terms of commercial deployments, field trials and engagements, catalyzed by a clear ambition from a majority of CSPs to capture the benefits of bringing AI into the mobile network, and moving toward Autonomous Network Level 4. To help solidify Level 4 autonomy ambitions, Ericsson has worked with the TM Forum to propose  a foundational and standardized approach to measure how AI capabilities, specifically rApps, contribute to autonomous networks realization at scale. Meeting the CSP need for flexibility in deployments, Ericsson recently introduced Agentic rApp as a Service, allowing customers the choice to deploy rApps via on-premise cloud or public cloud through AWS.

EIAP supports a vibrant community of CSPs and 3^rd party rApp developers which has, over its three-year life, become the #1 rApp ecosystem. Underpinned by Ericsson’s leadership in standardization and focus on driving innovation using the R1 interface (through which rApps interact with SMO), the ecosystem has grown to 89 members (including 68 software vendors, 20 CSPs, and 1 RAN vendor), and hosts 88 rApps in the directory it curates for members. The ecosystem was brought together for the first rApp developer conference last year, and the event will return on June the 10^th 2026, with early information now available on the dedicated page on Ericsson’s website.

Anders Vestergren, Head of Network Automation at Ericsson says: “As the industry moves decisively beyond the era of legacy automation tools, rApps and SMO, with the standardized R1 interface as the real enabler of innovation, will be the foundation for scalable automation and autonomous networks. We are deeply proud to be able to convene the world’s leading ecosystem of rApp consumers and contributors, and are looking forward to giving a platform to those ecosystem members who lead the industry forward through standards, execution, and a focus on delivering interoperable, production-ready solutions.

“By working openly with RAN vendors, CSPs and third-party developers, we are accelerating standards-based transition and a vibrant ecosystem that spurs innovation and delivers sustainable customer value, and we encourage all players to get involved.”

During MWC 2026, Ericsson will bring together members of the growing rApp Ecosystem via the Ericsson Conference Agenda, live demonstrations, real-world case studies and in-person partner presentations in its Speakers Corner.

At MWC 2026, Ericsson can be found at Hall 2 Stand 2O60. More information about Ericsson’s presence at MWC including our conference schedule, highlighted speaking sessions and topic highlights may be found on our website.