It’s well known that artificial intelligence has driven skyrocketing demand for electrical power, computing hardware, and network connectivity at data centers. But AI has also quietly shifted how consumers use their home internet service. AT&T reports a recent boost in the share of data that customers upload through its network as they communicate with AI systems.
“In 2025, customers’ upload traffic grew two times faster than download traffic,” says Jenifer Robertson, executive vice president and general manager for AT&T Mass Markets. “And that’s driven by AI use.”
Historically, home internet use has centered on downloading data—accessing websites, scrolling through social media, and watching streaming services—rather than uploading it. But Robertson says that pattern is beginning to change. People are uploading more of their own content and sending data back and forth with AI systems, whether that involves audio and video, photos, or other material like source code.
To adapt to customers’ changing needs in the age of AI—and even respond proactively to issues that could cause outages—AT&T has turned to artificial intelligence itself. AI systems, built with a mix of industry-standard tools and proprietary AT&T data, now help the telecom company plan, design, and build new parts of its network. They also help model and forecast network traffic and capacity, test equipment, and configure systems across hundreds of thousands of network sites.
“We have to optimize all of those sites to deliver the best customer experience,” Robertson says. “And that obviously gets both much easier [and] much more efficient when we apply AI to that modeling and allow it to improve the customer experience.”
Robertson declined to go into too many specifics about the algorithms or AI systems used, but says the company makes sure to respect its privacy policies around user data. AI can even help “auto-heal” network issues, sometimes even before customers detect them. It can also quickly help send outage notifications and, if needed under AT&T’s service guarantee program, credits to customers experiencing problems, Robertson says.
“Building that trust with customers is going a long way in increasing our net promoter scores and . . . customer satisfaction, and decreasing churn,” she says.
Because of its AI-bolstered confidence in its network, the company is expanding its AT&T Guarantee—which automatically grants customers credits for qualifying outages—to its Internet Air wireless home internet product.
Versions of the guarantee already applied to AT&T mobile service and fiber-based internet as of early 2025. Last year, AT&T reported serving at least 10 million fiber internet customers, and the company recently gained more than 1 million subscribers through the acquisition of most of Lumen’s mass-market fiber business. The company says it surpassed 1 million Internet Air subscribers in summer 2025, including in areas not served by AT&T fiber lines. Robertson says the service’s rapid growth contributed to the decision to add it to the guarantee program.
Additionally, AT&T customers who have both fiber and wireless service will now automatically receive Internet Backup at no extra charge. The program allows home internet connections to reroute through a linked AT&T mobile device if the fiber connection goes down, switching back to the wired connection once service is restored.
After all, even with the most sophisticated AI modeling, it’s not possible to avoid all outages from causes like accidentally severed fiber lines, which Robertson says can be caused by errant backyard gardeners.
“In the event that a fiber outage were to occur, the connectivity rolls over to their AT&T Wireless, and they never go without internet,” she says. “They have connectivity until we can get out there and repair it.”
