The telecom industry is full of AI projects that fail. Most operators think it’s a data problem—connect the systems, feed AI the information. But data doesn't tell AI how to decide. Your processes do. Your rules do.

In this special “What's Up with Totogi” episode, I flip the script and have my friend David Haselwood interview me about BSS Magic. We dig into what a breakthrough biology project from the 1990s can teach telcos about making AI work, why BSS Magic isn’t actually a BSS, and why vendor consolidation won’t fix your real problem. I also share stories from Tier-1 operators who tried horizontal AI vendors, failed—and then came to Totogi for AI that works.

Listen now to hear:

What BSS Magic is … and isn’t [03:23];
How we proved it’s the real deal at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Summit [06:39];
Why AI projects keep failing [08:59]; and
How Tier-1 operators are using BSS Magic to get real results [10:55].

Links and Resources:

Want to see BSS Magic in action and hear more customer success stories? Find Team Totogi in Hall 2 at MWC26 in Barcelona, running March 2-5. We’ll be showing off our telco ontology that manages context at scale. Connect with DR on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Check out Lulu Cheng Meservey's post on why bragging about AI in 2026 is like bragging about cloud storage—customers want to see real value, not buzzwords.
Read how a Southeast Asian operator cut CPQ order creation time by over 80%—from 5 minutes and 50+ clicks to under 50 seconds with a single prompt using BSS Magic.
Learn how Totogi generated over 500,000 lines of BSS Code in one day—LIVE!—at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum, proving that BSS Magic is the real deal. Check out our results.
Listen to another Telco in 20 “What’s Up With Totogi” episode to learn more about how BSS Magic functions as a telco-specific ontological layer and transforms BSS migrations from multi-year projects to just a few months.
Learn more about the Gene Ontology project and how biologists solved their semantic inconsistency problem in the 1990s.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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This week’s guest:
Danielle Rios (DR) is the founder and CEO of TelcoDR and Totogi, and host of the Telco in 20 podcast.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson