After a few days at MWC 2026 in Barcelona, one observation stood out.

𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑨𝑰.

For years AI lived behind screens. Chat windows and dashboards. Now sensors, edge compute, and connectivity allow AI to interact directly with the physical world.

Autonomous inspection. Robotic logistics. Infrastructure maintenance. Intelligent machines operating across cities and networks.

𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐚 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐞.

I share a few thoughts from the show floor.

The telecom industry stands at an inflection point. Networks are evolving into intelligent platforms. Edge compute is moving closer to the source of data. AI is becoming embedded into infrastructure.

At the same time, a parallel shift is underway in the physical world. Robots are leaving controlled factory floors and entering dynamic environments across logistics hubs, retail spaces, smart cities, and industrial sites.

At MWC 2026 in Barcelona, this convergence takes center stage. And one of the most compelling companies operating at this intersection is General Robotics , joining the Microsoft for Startups delegation at the Microsoft booth.

At Mobile World Congress 2026, connectivity will be everywhere. The real question is what rides on top of it.

Helfie.AI offers one such opportunity.

Helfie transforms a standard smartphone into an AI powered health screening tool. Using video, image, and signal analysis, it enables users to conduct rapid, accessible health assessments from their own devices. The experience is simple. The implications for telecom are profound.

For telecom operators, growth from traditional voice and data has plateaued across many markets. The next wave of differentiation will come from services that deepen daily engagement, increase relevance, and elevate the carrier from utility to platform.

Telecom leaders spend billions building networks for a future they must predict before it arrives. Fiber rollouts. 5G expansion. Edge infrastructure. Device subsidies. Content partnerships. Every major investment depends on one question:

Where is digital demand moving next?

At Mobile World Congress 2026, Microsoft for Startups is bringing a company that approaches this question from an unexpected angle: That company is Tembi - Market Intelligence.

Modern telecommunications operators face constant operational and customer experience challenges. Growing data volumes create opportunities, but many teams struggle to turn insights into action. Networks are resilient, but customer experience often falters when real-world disruptions occur, especially power outages.

A single outage can drive tens of thousands of support inquiries and distress calls, and without fast, accurate context, support teams and customers alike are left guessing.

Today’s telcos need a way to diagnose the right root cause rapidly and act immediately to resolve customer issues across channels. Gisual and Notch together provide that capability: real-time, accurate outage intelligence combined with autonomous customer engagement and support automation.

This is a new category of experience orchestration, one that moves telcos from reactive support to proactive resolution.

Microsoft for Startups comes to Mobile World Commerce with a clear purpose: to help enterprises turn innovation into execution.

Every organization is under pressure to move faster and deliver more with less. Yet many ideas stall between proof of concept and real deployment. Our role is to close that gap.

Startups bring speed and bold thinking. Microsoft brings a trusted, global cloud and enterprise-grade security. Together, this creates a co-innovation model that is practical and measurable.

Our mission in Barcelona is simple: spark conversations that become partnerships. Not demos for show. Not pilots that stall. But collaborations that move from idea to impact.

At MWC, we connect enterprise leaders with startups ready to scale on Microsoft’s platform. These are production-ready solutions built for real systems, real data, and real business constraints.

Specialty retail was built on expertise. But what happens when the expert is not on shift? From plumbing and flooring to wine and beauty, in-store specialized knowledge is becoming one of retail’s scarcest resources. High turnover, complex assortments, and long onboarding cycles make it difficult to scale true category depth across every location. In this blog post, I explore how domain-trained Personal AI models deployed at the edge can help preserve institutional knowledge, accelerate onboarding, and turn every associate into a confident category advisor. If you are thinking about how to protect margin, increase basket size, and elevate in-store experience, this is a conversation worth having.

We often ask customers what they want.But as the classic milkshake story taught us, customers do not buy products. They hire solutions to make progress in their lives.

I first encountered the 𝑱𝒐𝒃𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑩𝒆 𝑫𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌 when we were shaping Microsoft for Startups. It changed how I think about founders, enterprises, and innovation. The real question is not what features people prefer. It is what job they are trying to accomplish.In this article, I explore how that thinking evolves in the age of AI, from behavioral consumer intelligence platforms like i-Genie.ai to real-time market visibility from Nimble and Tembi - Market Intelligence, and how Microsoft for Startups helps enterprises find and validate the right startups to accelerate in-house innovation.

I have been tracking a few key technology themes across #CES, #NRF, and #WEF this year. One topic stood out clearly: #AgenticCommerce. This post reflects on the signals from all three events and what they reveal about how autonomous systems are beginning to reshape digital markets.

A few weeks ago, I shared a blog post (https://lnkd.in/gwmg3PbH) exploring what #retail could look like when multiple #AI agents work together rather than in silos. The response was overwhelming and quickly turned into action. The founders of the #startups Uriel Knorovich(Nimble), Wendy Chen(Omnistream), and Mario Megela(YDISTRI) decided to collaborate, alongside Krutika Kamdar from Microsoft, to make the concept real and bring it to life on stage at #NRF2026. In just two weeks, they turned a thought experiment into a working multi-agentic #retail scenario. My sincere appreciation to Krutika for the leadership and energy she brought to driving this effort.