Ep 133 - What’s up with Totogi: The biggest AI use case for telco

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

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