Speaking to Capacity Media at DTW Ignite in Copenhagen earlier this week, De La Torre offered a wide-ranging view of Oracle’s role in enabling “zero-touch” operations and unpacked what AI, APIs, and industrial IoT really mean for the future of telcos.
At the heart of Oracle’s strategy is “stacked automation”, a layered approach to network automation.
“Within our 5G portfolio, we’re automating at the network function level, and also augmenting the cloud layer that surrounds it,” De La Torre explained. This layered vision spans from network functions up to orchestration and unified service assurance.
But De La Torre is realistic about the current state of AI adoption. “There’s still a hesitancy to hand the keys over to algorithms – and rightly so,” he said.
“When it comes to customer-facing services, carriers are realising that training a model to do a task is one thing – training it to deliver the customer experience you want is another.”
His conversation with Vodafone’s CTO underlines the shift in industry thinking. “We’re discussing how foundational cloud is; Vodafone leaned into hyperscaler environments with multiple DRCC instances, which gave them the scalability and flexibility they needed,” he said. “AI and APIs are also key themes – not as revenue products, but as internal enablers.”
Looking ahead, De La Torre sees the biggest disruption in the industrial IoT space. “Consumer is saturated. Real revenue growth lies in operational technology, but carriers will need structural change to get there. Current business models just aren’t set up to deliver it.”
On the technical front, De La Torre says the challenge is aligning and cleansing data. “You can’t get value from AI without high-quality, integrated data,” he said. Operationally, it’s about reinvention. “Most carrier processes aren’t built for AI. The fear of changing the customer experience or the product itself holds transformation back.”
Shirin Esfandari, Oracle’s senior director of product marketing, added a key point on security and acceleration. She highlighted the duality of AI being used by cybercriminals but also by enterprises to combat that very threat.
“Security is a constant, evolving theme and AI is both a disruptor and an enabler. But the pace of change is staggering. Telcos need partnerships to keep up.”
In summary, the future of telecoms, according to Oracle, rests not just in technology adoption, but in embracing deep structural shifts, collaborative innovation, and a more agile mindset.
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