Telecom
63% of Marketers leveraging AI use generative while 54% use predictive AI is marketers’ top priority – and biggest headache
Marketers are prioritising AI implementation over all other initiatives this year, according to new Salesforce research in the ninth State of Marketing report.
With customer standards for personalisation continuing to rise year after year and marketing technologies constantly evolving, marketers need to act fast to keep up. Many see AI as a hack to do just that: a go-to for sharper personalization and efficiency, and now, creativity at scale with generative AI. Yet data challenges — from unification, integration, and security — are slowing marketing teams down.
With insights from over 4,800 marketers across 29 countries, the State of Marketing report highlights how top-performing marketers are outdoing their competition by embracing AI and other new opportunities while mitigating these data, trust, and security challenges.
Marketers pursue more tailored engagement amid rising customer expectations
Increasingly, marketers aim for more customised experiences based on detailed data like individual behaviours, preferences, interactions, or other specific indicators. And they are looking to AI to deliver more insights, predictions, automated workflows, and content. As a result, marketers consider having a data and AI strategy of utmost importance. On average, today’s marketers are able to fully personalise across five channels, with high-performers tailoring six channels and underperformers managing to fully personalise across only three.
Channels where content is easy to test and iterate on the fly, like mobile messaging, email marketing, and social media, see the most advanced personalization efforts. On the other hand, channels demanding more production time and planning like audio, organic search, and TV/OTT have the most work to do with 43%, 42%, and 41% seeing full personalization, respectively.
Marketers rev up AI adoption, but underperformers stall out in the evaluation stage
Marketers are pulled in many directions, and are focused on improving AI adoption. However, they’re struggling to actually implement AI and create cohesive journeys, among other difficulties.
Ironically, AI could be one tool to help teams overcome such challenges. Salesforce Chief Marketing Officer Ariel Kelman highlights how companies are entering “a new era of AI, catalysed by the generative gold rush,” and that the technology is being embraced by marketing organisations. As he sees it, “marketers are leading the charge by embracing rapid advancements in the technology to better connect with customers and prospects.”
Marketers are eager to implement AI into their own work streams: 75% are either experimenting with or have fully implemented AI in their operations. A closer look reveals that the embrace of the technology varies by performance level.
The majority of high- and moderate-performing teams are already rigorously testing, tweaking, and incorporating AI into their operations. Still, more than one-third of underperformers have yet to graduate from the consideration phase. In fact, high-performing marketing teams are 2.5x more likely than underperformers to have fully integrated AI into their operations. Until underperformers pivot from passive planning to hands-on action, AI’s advantages will continue to elude them.
Marketers embrace AI to predict, create, and integrate at scale
Sixty-three percent of marketers leveraging AI say they use generative while just over half (54%) are using predictive. And despite its relative novelty, generative AI use cases already rank among marketers’ favourites alongside predictive applications. As a result, teams are harnessing both types of AI for critical use cases like automating customer interactions and generating content — activities that will augment creativity and accelerate productivity.
Despite AI enthusiasm, concerns about trusted data remain
Compared to their peers in other departments, marketers are especially concerned about falling behind on generative AI adoption. Eighty-eight percent of marketers worry about missing out on generative AI’s benefits, compared to 78% of sales and 73% of service colleagues.
Even so, senior marketers remain cautious, citing concerns such as data and job security. Compared to their peers further up the corporate ladder, on-the-ground team leads are particularly wary about job stability. One in four team leads are worried AI will replace their job, compared to one in five executives. For their part, CMOs are most concerned with data leaks, with 41% citing data exposure as their top concern compared to 29% of VPs and 32% of team leads.
While data leaks are marketers’ number one generative AI concern, not having enough of the right data falls at number two. To capture enough valuable information, marketers are primarily leveraging customer service data and transaction data, showing an effort to partner with colleagues across sales and commerce departments to accomplish this. However, unification of that and other data — such as unstructured data from emails, NFTs, and more — remains a challenge.
In fact, only 31% of marketers are fully satisfied with their ability to unify customer data sources. What’s more, only approximately half of marketers say their systems automatically and regularly update with data from other departments.
Without fully integrated data, marketers’ ability to derive sharp insights is blunted, leaving core activities like analysing performance, suppressing audiences, and building campaigns powered by out-of-date or incomplete information. It even jeopardises marketers’ top priority: effectively leveraging AI.
A closer look at the survey results shows that fully integrated data is more common among high-performing marketing teams, suggesting that investing in unification can give marketers an edge. As Kelman explains, “a strong data foundation will be critical to AI success for marketers as they work to bring together and unify customer data for real-time activation.”
Nigeria has exactly 156,662 active fixed wired internet subscriptions as of mid-2026.
This is a tiny fraction compared to mobile GSM networks, which dominate the market with over 154 million subscribers.
The fixed wired market primarily consists of homes and offices using direct physical cables like fiber optics.
Fixed wired services use physical cables, like glass fiber or copper wire, to bring internet directly into a building.
It is like a dedicated, private water pipe for your home. It provides very fast speeds, unlimited data, and is reliable.
In contrast, mobile GSM uses radio waves transmitted from tall towers to phones, acting more like a sprinkler that sprays a signal across an entire neighborhood.
Because laying physical cables across cities is expensive and hard to do, these subscriptions are very rare.
However, the market has seen recent growth, driven largely by Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.
The top players are: MTN FibreX with 110,564 subscribers, which is roughly 88.7 per cent of the entire market.
SWIFTNG accounts for about 13,945 connections.
The others are ipNX and 21st Century Technologies which make up the number.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that it was strengthening collaboration with state governments and industry players to develop a transparent, cost-based pricing framework for sharing telecom ducts as part of efforts to speed up broadband expansion across Nigeria.
Ayuba Shuaibu, director of Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis, NCC, disclosed this at the Stakeholders’ Forum in Abuja.
Shuaibu said the initiative was designed to build consensus among all parties.
“The primary purpose of this forum is to ensure seamless synergy between the Commission and all stakeholders,” he said.
The director said the consultation was prompted by longstanding complaints over permits, levies and other charges imposed by different levels of government.
He said bringing together state commissioners, telecom operators, tower companies and representatives of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum had helped improve understanding of the issues.
“This engagement is a work in progress. We expect more input from stakeholders before presenting the outcome to the Nigeria Governors’ Forum,” he added.
Dr Helen Adeneye, commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Kogi State. welcomed the consultation, saying Nigeria needs a harmonised policy that clearly defines the responsibilities of both the federal and state governments.
“We need a harmonised policy that allows states to collaborate better with telecom operators and creates a more business-friendly environment,” she said.
Dr Adeneye added that adopting the Dig-Once policy would establish a uniform pricing system and help resolve disputes over charges for telecom infrastructure deployment.
Chidi Ajuzie, chief executive officer, WTES Projects Limited, whose firm is conducting the consultancy study, said the proposed framework would introduce a common cost structure for duct sharing to support broadband investment and economic growth.
“The study is designed to create a uniform pricing model that will drive broadband growth, economic development and wider adoption across the country,” he said.
Ajuzie explained that the consultants had developed preliminary floor and ceiling prices to guide operators while allowing flexibility within the approved range.
He added that the recommendations remain open to industry input before the NCC finalises the framework.
The Dig-Once Policy is designed to reduce the cost and disruption of deploying broadband infrastructure by requiring fibre ducts to be installed whenever roads are constructed or rehabilitated.
The NCC is developing a cost-based pricing framework for sharing these ducts to promote fair pricing, reduce duplication of infrastructure and encourage investment.
The proposed model is expected to support the Federal Government’s broadband expansion targets while improving collaboration between telecom operators and state governments.
Telecom
MUSON Graduates Shine at 2026 Concert as MTN Foundation Celebrates 20 Years of Music Scholarships
Emeka Nwodike, acting director of the MUSON School of Music, conducted the institution’s graduating class in a grand finale performance, bringing the 2026 graduation concert to a memorable close. The concert took place on July 7 at the Shell Hall of the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.
The event celebrated students who successfully completed the MUSON Diploma Programme through the MTN Foundation Scholarship Programme.
The graduating students delivered a rich choral repertoire that reflected the breadth of their musical training, performing Italian Salad by Richard Genee, My Song by Eriks Esenvalds, Obi Dimkpa by Laz Ekwueme, and an ABBA Medley arranged by Goran Bejstam. Under the Acting Director’s baton, the choir demonstrated technical precision, vocal maturity and artistic expression before an audience of family members, music enthusiasts and industry stakeholders.
The concert formed part of the long-running partnership between the MTN Foundation and the Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON), which has, since 2006, provided scholarships for hundreds of talented young Nigerians to receive formal music education through the MUSON Diploma School. The programme continues to serve as one of the country’s foremost platforms for developing professional musicians and strengthening Nigeria’s creative economy.
Speaking at the close of the concert, Nwodike expressed appreciation to the MTN Foundation for its sustained support of the scholarship programme over the past two decades. He also thanked the Director of the MUSON Centre, faculty members, mentors and other stakeholders whose dedication has contributed to the school’s continued success.
“For nearly 20 years, the MTN Foundation has remained a steadfast partner in our mission to nurture young musical talent. We are deeply grateful for that commitment. I also want to thank the Director of the MUSON Centre, our faculty, mentors and everyone whose dedication has helped the MUSON School of Music continue to grow and thrive. Their support has made this programme what it is today, and our graduates are a testament to that collective effort,” he said.
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