According to Ericsson, unlike traditional chatbots, which leverage search to provide links to existing resources, ANA has the ability to read, understand, and generate new text and graphical content.

"ANA provides personalised responses by correlating information from multiple technical documents and unique insights from the customer’s network, transforming hours or even days of work into seconds," Ericsson says in its announcement.

In addition, Ericsson says ANA is the first generative AI virtual expert designed for enterprise Wireless WAN (WWAN) networks, utilising large language models, with all its AI components hosted entirely within Ericsson's environment.

"This design ensures user and data privacy by avoiding API calls to third-party consumer generative AI applications," Ericsson says.

Key uses of ANA include configuration assistance, enhanced troubleshooting, policy recommendation, custom graph generation, and concise knowledge summarisation of information from Ericsson’s library of technical documentation.

Pankaj Malhotra, Head of Enterprise Networking and Security, Enterprise Wireless Solutions, Ericsson said Ericsson’s NetCloud is differentiated in its ability to simplify the deployment, management and troubleshooting of enterprise cellular networking.

"By investing heavily in cutting-edge AI technology, we are empowering even the most streamlined IT teams to tackle 5G administration challenges, enhancing network reliability, security, and user experience with unparalleled efficiency,” Malhotra said.