Artificial Intelligence in the Telecommunication Sector: Exploratory Analysis of 6G’s Potential for Organizational Agility

6G (sixth generation of mobile communications) is one of the least understood future technologies from a management perspective, although the dynamics associated with it, like the internet of things (IoT), open service-based architecture (SBA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly visible in telecommunications sector. 6G envisions a highly interconnected future world where mobile connectivity is aimed at enhancing societal well-being and sustainability if managed properly. 6G will also considerably impact the agility of the organizations involved in providing different digital services by offering them an economical route to share and integrate various platforms, although it increases the management complexity of these platforms. To address this management complexity, AI has been referred to as the most viable tool for organizations to navigate the range of complex issues linked with platform sharing and integration, due to its potential for developing agility in both large and small organizations. Research on 6G started only a couple of years ago, and so far, most of the research on 6G has been undertaken from a technical perspective, with some recent studies analyzing some of the regulatory and business dynamics. To the best of our knowledge, no prior work (conceptual or empirical) has specifically attempted to untangle the link between AI and organizational agility development in the specific context of 6G. Our chapter is in response to these clear gaps in the literature, where we aim to undertake an exploratory analysis of 6G’s potential for the development of organizational agility in the telecommunications industry. Moreover, it is a pioneering work that future business and management scholars can build on while analyzing 6G’s management and implications in micro and macro settings.