Last week, NTCA hosted its inaugural AI Summit, a half-day online event examining what AI means for broadband providers and rural communities. Over 700 participants tuned in to hear real-world examples and expert insights about AI tools that can help make their work easier, faster and more effective. Many of this year’s speakers were part of the 30-Day AI Challenge, a friendly competition designed to encourage NTCA members to experiment with AI to learn what works best for them.
From practical use cases to big picture possibilities, the conversations were lively, insightful and full of moments that had attendees thinking about how AI fits into their day-to-day work.
With so much ground covered, I’ve narrowed down my top 10 favorite takeaways; what stood out, sparked the most discussion and what broadband providers should keep on their radar going forward.
1. Small Size Is Your Competitive Weapon
Thanks to their smaller size and lack of legacy systems, rural broadband providers can often adopt AI faster than large enterprises. With the same powerful AI tools available to both at a low cost, smaller providers can move quickly and stay closer to the cutting edge.
2. Start With Content, Then Scale
Not sure where to start? AI-assisted assisted content creation, like social media posts, customer communication and documentation require minimal data exposure and help build the skills needed for more advanced applications.
3. Build Your Community of Practice Now
None of the frontier AI labs, like Open AI, Anthropic and Google, are focused on small and medium sized businesses, so peer-to-peer learning is critical for small broadband providers. Take advantage of connections in NTCA’s member network – share use cases, prompts, implementation strategies and lessons learned – and find ways to work together to accelerate collective progress.
4. Govern Data First — Then Innovate
Data security and privacy are the biggest factors shaping how fast AI can be adopted. Providers should establish clear governance practices before scaling deployment to ensure data is protected but also explore local model hosting for sensitive data, so that learning and experimentation are not slowed down.
5. Master the Prompt to Multiply the Impact
To get quality results, you need quality prompts. Teams that treat prompt writing as a skill and build reusable prompt templates for common tasks see better results than those using AI like a search engine.
6. Elevate Customer Service Without Replacing It
One company created a new AI-powered customer hub that uses knowledge libraries and chatbots to troubleshoot issues and suggest upgrades to human customer service reps in real time, helping them focus on what they do best: delivering a great customer experience. And it has worked. The company has seen a 3–5-point increase in its NPS score.
7. Speed Up Decision Making with Good Data
Using a ChatGPT Pro license and existing consumer data, one participant developed ROI targets, take rate projections, and marketing strategies to support a grant application in a matter of hours — highlighting how good data is the real accelerator.
8. Spot Problems Early with AI-Powered Analysis
One company shared how using AI to streamline internal systems and analyze patterns in trouble tickets led to major efficiency gains. By connecting data across platforms, the team was able to identify network issues earlier, even before customers realized there was a problem, saving time and enabling more proactive customer support.
9. Improve Network Operations with Automation
Participants discussed how they're harnessing AI to streamline network operations challenges through practical applications like detecting compromised emails, modernizing legacy systems and automating technical documentation. These behind‑the‑scenes applications are helping teams work more efficiently while strengthening network reliability and security.
10. Don’t Forget to Have Fun!
Meaningful AI learning happens through hands-on experimentation. By encouraging teams to explore, test and iterate within clear guardrails, companies can find creative ways to solve real problems faster.
A big thank you to NISC, Calix, CoBank, Actifai, Consortia Consulting, Inc., Innovative Systems, Pivot, Telcom Insurance Group, and Womble Bond Dickinson for helping make this event possible. And if you’re attending NTCA 2026 RTIME in a few weeks, make sure you check out, “30-Day AI Challenge: Innovation Exchange” and the sessions, “AI, Robotics, and the Future of Innovation: Harnessing Emerging Tech for Any Industry” and “Leveraging AI Across Rural Broadband Operations.”