Telecoms in 2026: the 10 risks shaping resilience, growth and trust

As telecoms operators plan for the future, their risk universe continues to evolve at pace. It’s clear that telcos are not immune to today’s febrile geopolitical environment — and must be ready to adapt service offerings, operations and supply chains where required — even as AI redraws telco transformation horizons. They must also keep a keen eye on changing customer priorities, as network resilience and data protection become ever more critical requirements.

Here we have identified what we consider to be the top 10 risks facing the sector in 2026.

Risk 1: Underestimating changing imperatives in privacy, security and trust

Responsible AI initiatives are in the spotlight: while 82% of consumers have knowingly used AI tools in the past six months, only 48% believe the benefits outweigh the potential negatives. According to the EY AI Sentiment Index Survey, telcos are lagging other sectors in adopting measures to improve trust in AI: only 59% of telcos say they have a robust methodology for identifying, assessing and mitigating risks associated with AI, against 66% of all respondents.

Risk 2: Ineffective transformation through new technologies

While telcos are moving at pace to harness the power of AI, several factors are hampering their efforts to scale up their AI initiatives – including resource constraints, governance frameworks and challenges around use case prioritization. Alongside this, the need to decommission legacy IT and networks is becoming more urgent, given they are a vital complement to telcos’ AI-native ambitions.

Risk 3: Inadequate talent, skills and culture management

The drive for new and improved skills is gathering pace. TM Forum research shows that cybersecurity, AI, IT infrastructure and data science are seeing the highest demand among telcos. While telcos are addressing talent gaps through various means – from reskilling programs thorough to partnerships with universities – cultural challenges remain persistent, including adapting to new working methodologies.

Risk 4: Inadequate network value proposition and performance

Although the availability of high-speed infrastructure is improving, commensurate adoption is often lagging. Bolstering demand is now essential, and telcos must differentiate their offerings in new ways to avoid price erosion. However, their efforts to reposition themselves are complicated by a proliferation of factors contributing to network outages and downtime, such as extreme weather events and power grid failure.

Risk 5: Insufficient adaptation to the evolving geopolitical environment

A backdrop of geopolitical tensions adds to the external uncertainties facing telcos — but national technology sovereignty strategies also signal upside, with telcos able to adopt a more explicit role as infrastructure champions and data guardians. Nevertheless, new cyber regulations and AI policies risk undermining regulatory predictability, underlining that the supply-side environment remains volatile for infrastructure providers.

Risk 6: Inability to take advantage of new business models

While telcos are making good progress with rolling out new service offerings for enterprises, these customers’ low awareness of new B2B propositions is limiting adoption. The EY Reimagining Industry Futures Study shows that 21% of enterprises across sectors have low or no awareness of network application programming interface (API) solutions, a knowledge gap that widens to 27% of government and public sector organizations.

Risk 7: Ineffective engagement with external ecosystems

Effective partner management is mission critical for the modern telco. Horizontal collaboration between telcos has seen a strong uptick in recent quarters, as they look to expand their addressable markets and monetize services like APIs and AdTech. Meanwhile, telco relationships with technology companies are becoming more complex and multisided, with EY research finding that telco CXOs regard a range of technology and media companies as both partners and potential competitors.

Risk 8: Failure to respond effectively to changing customer needs

Online safety is a growing area of consumer concern. The EY Decoding the Digital Home Study finds that 55% of households are “very concerned” about children accessing harmful content. While governments are implementing policy actions in response, telcos offering services to families and teenagers need to navigate a more complex stakeholder landscape. Meanwhile, younger users also struggle to evaluate value propositions, with Decoding the Digital Home finding that 25- to 34-year-olds rank highest for finding connectivity packages difficult to understand.

Risk 9: Poor management of the sustainability agenda

Telcos are improving their performance over time against key ESG metrics, including scope 1 and 2 emissions. However, ongoing commitment to future timelines for improving ESG performance is less certain: the EY CEO Outlook Survey finds that 60% of telco leaders are rethinking the timescales for their sustainability goals. Looking ahead, balancing several competing ESG priorities will be essential to ensure sustainability programs remain on track.

Risk 10: Inadequate operating models to maximize value creation

Telcos’ transition towards a global business services (GBS) model is ongoing, albeit at varying stages of maturity. While improving cost-efficiency remains an essential goal, GBS is delivering other benefits ranging from digitization and workforce optimization to enabling new services. Alongside the drive to centralization, telco appetite for M&A is a further catalyst for operating model refinement. However, telcos need to be aware of the inherent risks that more ambitious deal-making can bring in areas like skills, culture, technology and stakeholder management.

Interconnected risks demand integrated responses, not isolated actions

The defining risks for telecom operators today are deeply interconnected — and responding to them in isolation is no longer sufficient. Telcos that align trust, technology, talent and operating models around clear value outcomes will be better positioned to navigate uncertainty and unlock growth. Those that move decisively can turn this risk landscape into a source of competitive advantage rather than constraint.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.