Organizational AI Readiness for Telecom Project Management: A Conceptual Review and Diagnostic Framework

Telecommunications operators are under increasing pressure to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to keep up with the recent technologies and stay ahead in the service provision advancement. However, within organizations that are not adequately prepared for AI adoption, many of these initiatives fail to gain traction. The study explores how existing academic research and practical frameworks can conceptualize organizational AI readiness in project-based telecom contexts. It synthesizes six peer-reviewed academic studies on AI readiness and digital transformation and four telecom-relevant AI readiness and maturity frameworks from industry bodies. Using a hybrid Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) and People Process–Technology-in-use–Data (PPTD) lens, the 80 readiness indicators derived from the academic and practical resources were coded. Then, analyzed them through reflexive thematic analysis and identified nine interrelated AI readiness themes: strategic AI vision and business alignment; leadership, culture and change climate; human capital and AI skills; data assets, governance and protection; technology and infrastructure backbone; AI solutions, lifecycle and experimentation; organizational processes, governance and project operations; value realization and performance impact; and external ecosystem, regulation and partnerships. These themes are integrated into a conceptual diagnostic framework tailored to project management in telecom organizations and motivated by the challenges of communication service providers in contexts such as Yemen. The resulted framework addresses the gap of fragmented academic and practical perspectives. This offers telecom project management offices (PMOs) a conceptualizing mechanism to reflect on AI readiness, identify potential gaps and prioritizing interventions. In the same time, it provides a basis for future empirical validation and cross-sector comparison.