[🇧🇩] Artificial Intelligence-----It's challenges and Prospects in Bangladesh

[Saif]

AI opens new revenue stream for telcos

For decades, telecom operators built their businesses around one basic product -- connectivity. They first sold voice calls, then gradually turned mobile data into a much larger source of revenue as smartphones and mobile internet transformed how people communicate, work and consume digital...

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AI opens new revenue stream for telcos

Mahmudul Hasan

Telcos shifted from voice to data, and now AI services. Photo: Star/file

For decades, telecom operators built their businesses around one basic product -- connectivity. They first sold voice calls, then gradually turned mobile data into a much larger source of revenue as smartphones and mobile internet transformed how people communicate, work and consume digital services.

Worldwide, telecom operators are beginning to sell something different: access to artificial intelligence. Bangladesh’s mobile operators are moving in the same direction.

Robi introduced Robi AI Space on September 9, offering access to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek.

A day later, Grameenphone launched OneAI, bringing multiple leading AI models under a single subscription through the MyGP app.

Banglalink, meanwhile, has been offering AI services through its RYZE platform, including access to multiple models and AI token packages.

The moves signal a shift in the operators’ role -- from simply providing the connectivity through which digital services are consumed to becoming distribution, subscription and payment platforms for AI services.

Globally, the development is part of a broader shift in the telecom industry from selling network traffic to monetising AI consumption.

China’s three major telecom operators -- China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom -- launched commercial AI-token packages in May, marking one of the clearest examples of mobile operators treating AI usage as a product similar to traditional voice minutes or data allowances.

So what exactly are these AI tokens?

Tokens are the basic units used by large language models to process information. When a user sends a prompt to an AI service, the input is broken down into tokens, while the model’s response also consumes tokens. The amount of processing required can therefore be measured in tokens, allowing AI providers to charge according to usage.

In simple terms, a mobile operator sells gigabytes to pay for internet consumption, while an AI platform can sell tokens to pay for AI computation.

China’s operators have begun packaging those tokens much like mobile data. China Telecom, for example, launched consumer plans starting at 9.9 yuan ($1.40) a month for 10 million tokens, with higher-priced packages offering larger allowances. It also introduced business and developer packages, with token allowances reaching hundreds of millions.

China Unicom also launched token packages, including plans ranging from six million to 18 million tokens, while China Mobile has offered token-based services through partnerships and local branches.

That gives operators an opportunity to move beyond their traditional role as connectivity providers.

The model is now reaching Bangladesh.

Tanveer Mohammad, chief corporate affairs officer at Grameenphone, said that when voice service first arrived, it brought a significant transformation to people’s lifestyles and engagement at that time. Then came the era of data. By using data, people gained immense access to global knowledge.

“Now, the entire world is entering the era of AI. Telcos cannot stay outside of this global AI revolution. We must leverage AI to increase our operational efficiency, expand our capabilities, and broaden our reach.”

Grameenphone’s service includes ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Gemini, among other AI models. Customers can use the service for learning and research, content writing, coding and software development, image generation, document analysis and summarisation.

At an event at GPHouse marking Grameenphone’s AI&I Day, Chief Guest Rehan Asif Asad, adviser to the prime minister for telecom and ICT, officially announced the launch.

Rehan Asad said, “I am encouraged to see Grameenphone taking the lead in making AI more accessible to people through initiatives such as OneAI. For students in particular, this creates an affordable way to access AI tools and use them to support learning, research and skill development.”

Grameenphone CEO Yasir Azman said, “We are putting the possibilities of AI directly into the hands of millions of our customers, particularly students, making it simpler and more accessible for learning, work, creativity and problem-solving.”

Through AI Space, Robi positioned the service as an all-in-one AI hub inside the My Robi app.

Through a partnership with Every AI, Robi AI Space offers access to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek through a single premium subscription or selected AI bundle packages.

Robi Managing Director and CEO Ziad Shatara said, “With credit card penetration posing a structural hurdle, our market has long faced restricted access to global digital tools. By introducing this all-in-one AI platform through My Robi, we are bridging that divide.”

Banglalink has also entered the emerging AI-services market through RYZE, its AI-powered digital platform.​

 

[Saif]

What will remain ours in the age of AI?

In the past, people would view a glacier chunk falling into a lake and causing a river to overflow as a cosmic event or divine act.

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What will remain ours in the age of AI?

Shamsad Mortuza

VISUAL: SALMAN SAKIB SHAHRYAR

In the past, people would view a glacier chunk falling into a lake and causing a river to overflow as a cosmic event or divine act. Now that we have placed an eye in the sky, the satellite images can help us understand how the unprecedented flash flood in the Nepal-Tibet border area happened. And to aid human reason, AI is employed to piece together the exact way the mountain and the river interlocked in a cataclysmic event.

The event is a reminder how small and insignificant humans are in the grand scheme of things. Many images online highlight humanity’s extremes: people risking their lives to save others, while some others scavenging through debris to loot from the dead. One image of a two-storey building surviving the onrush of waters made many of us think of miracles. Then came the scientific explanations, where structural engineers showed the extra piling used to anchor the house. The image made me reflect on the very connection between deep and surface structures.

While presenting a plenary talk at the recently held AI conclave at BRAC University, I used this solitary house image as a metaphor to argue for the need for a strong foundation in a deluge of information. As a student of literature and culture, I have a holistic approach to the onrush of information that has flooded our screens. In academia, we are unsure how to deal with the exponential growth of technology. There is no denying the fact that research today is much more computational, data-driven, industry-led and interdisciplinary; knowledge production relies heavily on technology. AI is here to stay, but how to approach it is another matter.

An MIT media lab publication titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task” finds that brain-only writers have the strongest, followed by search users with intermediate, and Large Language Model (LLM) users with the weakest brain connectivity. Yale University has responded by developing an AI guidance for students, encouraging them to think critically about the technology.

As policymakers have stated sporadically, Bangladesh is working on an AI policy. AI is now being considered a life skill. Algorithmic ads targeting groups of people becoming experts on digital tools in under a month are plentiful. But can one truly become an expert in anything without a solid grounding in that subject? That is precisely the question I floated in the AI conclave. I can write a prompt to ask the LLM to produce a poem for me. But can I claim it as my own? Do I own the language that exists in its repository? This is where the issue of ethics and integrity comes in.

A culture of suspicion has arisen where we begin to comprehend the success of others as a compromised integrity. We think the singers have used auto-tuners, academics have used AI, and business houses have used manufactured data for their sales pitches. This is a culture where some assume a moral high ground to preach honesty and integrity.

It is like students turning in an assignment not realising that the teacher has added a hidden catchphrase to nab a misconduct. On Teachers’ Day, ChatGPT released a short video to celebrate teachers by saying, “We know.” The ad was supposed to tell the students not to think that they had outwitted their teachers by using LLM tools. Teachers have the foundational knowledge to know that their students are cutting corners. The temptation is too powerful. We are all beginning to outsource our tasks: students finishing assignments in 15 minutes and teachers preparing their lesson plans or class materials in equally short time. Information is processed at an unprecedented scale and speed. Our overreliance on devices has made it increasingly difficult to think on our own. We are rehearsing knowledge that is already in the repository, then producing it with some personal garnishing.

A representative from the leading plagiarism checker Turnitin told the conclave how the number of submissions to Organization Science had increased by 42 percent ever since ChatGPT was launched in 2022. Even the prestigious publishing outlet like Springer Nature retracted 2,923 papers in 2024. A Ukrainian paper mill network was found responsible for 1,517 fraudulent papers. On September 8, TBS Bangla ran an investigative report and talked to a Bangladeshi paper mill selling Q1 journal articles for TK 20,000-70,000.

So how do we pursue knowledge and retain trust and integrity in this age of AI? More importantly, how do we retain our human voice and agency at a time when everything can be outsourced? I return to the image of the house that survived Nepal’s flood. We need to build a foundation before we encounter the flood of information presented by AI. And that foundation must be built in the right environment.

We need to be AI-resilient, but thinking that we can be AI-proof will be foolish. Instead, we can adopt a product-process-presence model. If we consider an assignment to be a product, for instance, we need to check it for accuracy, disciplinary standards, and the evidence that it provides. Then there should be declarative options where the producer of the work must reveal how the product was made. Some journals now require the proposals, drafts, sources, prompt log and revisions made. The most important phase is the presence phase: where a learner must be able to defend the product, maybe through a viva or a brief presentation.

For such an ecosystem to grow, we need to apply the same standards to both teachers and students. Teachers must make the AI rules clear. Students need to know whether AI is completely prohibited or partially allowed. Whatever the case is, the feedback process must retain human agencies.

At an institutional level, policymakers must not create unrealistic pressures on their faculty members in the name of rankings and reputations to publish beyond their capabilities. The pressure chain prompts faculty members to salami-slice their works, acting like the proverbial fox repeatedly showing the same crocodile kid before consumption.

There is no glory in catching plagiarism after it has happened. The cop-and-robber game that the media likes to dress up as news is just the tip of the iceberg. The greater problem is our knowledge that the glacier is heating up. Whatever we know as our own will have a great fall. And if we all follow the fancied trend, we risk being washed away. The only way we can withstand the change is by making us ready for the next flood. AI can help us build faster, but only we can decide what is worth building and where we want to build next.

Dr Shamsad Mortuza is vice-chancellor at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).​