BT Expands AWS Deal to Accelerate Cloud and AI Services

BT Group has deepened its collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) through a new five-year strategic agreement aimed at modernizing its infrastructure and accelerating the delivery of smarter, more resilient, and customer-centric digital services. The deal builds on an existing relationship between the companies and aligns with BT’s “Build, Connect, Accelerate” strategy, which seeks to overhaul legacy systems and improve customer experience through cloud-native innovation.

At the heart of this agreement is a shift from simply migrating workloads to cloud environments to building applications natively in the cloud, supported by AWS Professional Services. By adopting microservices designed in line with the TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture, BT expects to deliver more agile and responsive services. The approach is intended to reduce operational complexity while creating a foundation for faster innovation, improved resilience, and stronger security.

Tom Meakin, BT Group’s Chief Strategy and Change Officer, framed the move as a commitment to customers as much as a technical modernization. He noted that cloud-native transformation with AWS allows the company to react more quickly to customer needs, implement new features with greater speed, and deliver more dependable services across the board. The emphasis, according to Meakin, is on making everyday interactions with BT simpler, safer, and more personalized.

The partnership promises to deliver benefits across several dimensions. Scalability will enable BT to flexibly expand services in response to shifting customer demand. Improved resilience is expected to minimize downtime and ensure consistent service availability, while agility will allow faster updates and feature releases. AWS’s infrastructure and expertise also support BT in lowering long-term operating costs and strengthening compliance and data protection. Jan Hofmeyr, AWS’s Vice President of Telecommunications, highlighted that the cooperation underscores a customer-first approach, where innovation and automation directly enhance reliability and security.

Intelligent and Autonomous Network

Beyond improving customer-facing services, the agreement would also advance BT’s long-term vision of creating a more intelligent and autonomous network. By embedding AWS technologies across its core network and Radio Access Network, BT is laying the foundation for a distributed, AI-ready data platform. This includes the deployment of AWS machine learning and generative AI within BT’s Network Operations Centre to automate routine processes and drive toward self-healing capabilities. The objective is to anticipate and resolve issues before they affect users, significantly enhancing both resilience and service quality.

BT is already applying AWS tools to real-world initiatives. The company is reengineering its customer payment system with tokenized data to simplify and secure direct debit arrangements across brands and channels. This reduces friction for customers while enhancing trust in how data is handled. At the same time, BT is modernizing field operations through a new workflow platform that integrates order management, engineer scheduling, and subcontractor coordination. By consolidating these processes, BT expects to accelerate service delivery and improve accuracy in customer interactions.

The BT-AWS deal reflects a broader transformation within the telecom sector, where operators are increasingly reliant on cloud and AI platforms to address rising customer expectations and manage the complexity of next-generation networks. For BT, the partnership is both an operational necessity and a competitive differentiator, offering the tools to remain agile in a market defined by rapid change and digital-first demands.

By combining AWS’s cloud innovation with its own telecom expertise, BT aims to redefine how networks are operated and how services are delivered, moving closer to a future where automation, resilience, and customer experience converge at scale.