AT&T CEO: Connecting the Future, Embracing AI and Driving Cultural Change

Hi, everybody, and welcome to In Good Company. And today, we are live from New York. Now, the first thing I did when I arrived was to change my SIM card in my phone to an AT and T SIM card. Thank you for that, Nicole. And so, therefore, it's kinda fun to be here with the CEO of the whole company, AT and T. It's good to be with you. And thank you for changing your SIM card to an AT and T SIM card. Now, AT and T, American Telephone and Telegraph Company, you know, founded by Alexander Graham Bell going back to, like, 1877. That's quite a history. Right? Just about on year one fifties next year. So it's a big deal. Now telecom industry has always been fascinating and interesting. But what's interesting for you in the industry right now? I I think there's two things that are really important. In The United States, because of what came after the Telecom Act, which was an attempt to deregulate all the various forms of communication Mhmm. We're now seeing technology actually achieve that. There's real intermodal competition between wireless and fixed and satellite. And as a result of that, there's a reordering of assets going on in The United States. And where we used to have companies that focus maybe in one technology branch or another, it's now just about can you deliver a network that gets customers on the internet And can you do it whether they need to be on wireless or a fixed connection or through satellite? And that reordering of assets is pretty interesting because I think it's gonna readjust the winners and losers in the market. Mhmm. And that's But but but data traffic is exploding. Right? We are using it more and more and more. Yet the telecom sector is kind of certainly lagging the, you know, the the Meg seven and the big tech stocks. Why why is that? Well, that's, clearly the value add on the high margin products. When somebody can carve out a dominant market position, they tend to drive better margins, and the magnificent seven have managed to do that in each of their segments. In our case, we're pretty competitive industry. And as a result of that, we tend to grow at GDP or GDP a little bit plus. And, our ability to kind of carve that same, dominant position at large margins just hasn't arrived at this point. Having said that, the next exciting part about the industry is the fact that AI is gonna drive another growth cycle in data and usage demand. And we think that's gonna be a unique opportunity for growth in our business moving forward and it's going to allow for that consistent, steady improvement of cash flows if you invest correctly during this change cycle that's occurring right now. So so how should we look at the relationship between the explosive growth in data and the providers of …