Lumen’s Transformation Journey to AIOPs & Advanced Network Operations by Greg Freeman

Greg Freeman, Vice President of Network and Customer Transformation at Lumen Technologies, shares Lumen’s 5-year journey to “invert the pyramid” in network operations—shifting from hands-on CLI work to machine-to-machine orchestration at scale. Starting with a people-skills pivot (netDevOps), Lumen built 350+ deterministic workflows running millions of times per year, backed by curated data (draining the “data swamp”). They layer AI as feedback and enablement—using ML (predicts), Generative (creates), and Agentic (acts)—while governing actions via MCP-connected agents that launch proven workflows, not free-form changes. The focus remains on three tenets: prevent issues, fix fast, and communicate effectively.

What You’ll Learn:
People → Data → Orchestration: How reskilling to netDevOps, cleaning data, and distinguishing task automation vs end-to-end orchestration enabled scale.
Closed-Loop at Scale: What 350+ workflows (add/delete config, card reboots, notices) running ~continuously look like—and why determinism matters.
AI in the Loop, Not Loose: Using ML, Generative, and Agentic AI with MCP to query tools, pick the right workflow, and return human-readable results—without ungated network actions.
Reality Checks: Why value stalls without curated data, guardrails, and cost control (tokens/compute), and how Lumen frames success around don’t let it break / fix fast / communicate.

If you wish to watch the entire day of AI for Network Leaders click here.

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