Ericsson ConsumerLab has released a report examining how growing use of AI, including “agentic AI” systems that perform tasks on a user’s behalf, could reshape demand on telecommunications networks over the coming decade.
The report, titled An agentic life: How consumer AI usage is shaping future network needs, is based on a survey of more than 43,000 smartphone users aged 15 to 69 across 27 markets. Ericsson ConsumerLab said the results were representative of about 1.7 billion smartphone users worldwide.
According to the report, about four percent of current smartphone users use agentic AI capabilities today. By 2030, 38 percent of surveyed smartphone users said they expect to be using agentic AI apps and features on their devices.
The report also forecasts that around two-thirds of smartphone users will interact with AI daily by 2030. It suggests agentic AI could reduce screen time, with respondents expecting to save up to an hour of browsing time a day as tasks shift to AI-driven delegation.
Ericsson ConsumerLab reported that around 10 percent of smartphone owners globally are considered “AI super users” who engage heavily with multimodal AI, and that this group could rise to about 30 percent by 2030. The report claims these early adopters are expected to be responsible for 80 percent of AI activity, based on their higher usage levels.
In Australia, the report predicts multimodal AI use will increase from six percent to 23 percent by 2030.
The report points to scheduling and coordination, product comparisons, recurring purchases, and health monitoring among the tasks consumers expect to delegate to agentic AI. It also argues that faster AI response times will become important for user satisfaction, potentially increasing background network activity and raising questions for communications service providers on performance and security.
Jasmeet Singh Sethi, Head of Ericsson ConsumerLab, said: “We have seen many times that early adopter behavior and expectations – in this case the AI super users – are a strong indicator of much wider-scale adoption to follow. We believe this will be the same with the use of agentic AI.”
He added: “Multimodal and agentic AI growth will not only create network quality expectations for consumers in terms of their experience but will also result in significantly increased background actions in the networks that need to be handled securely and efficiently.”
The markets surveyed were Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
You can read the full report here.
