- Amdocs pivots and rolls out agentic AI-based OS to sit on top of existing OSS/BSS stack
- Shimie Hortig will replace Shuky Sheffer as Amdocs president and CEO
- T-Mobile expanded a partnership with Amdocs to include managed services, software development, AI innovation and UScellular integration
Amdocs pulled the trigger on a long-awaited overhaul of its back-end software business with the launch of an aOS agentic AI operating system designed to ride on top of the traditional telco OSS/BSS stack. It paired the product pivot with a major leadership change, announcing insider Shimie Hortig will take over from current President and CEO Shuky Sheffer at the end of March 2026.
Hortig is currently company's group president of the Americas Business Group.
But Amdocs piled on even more news, extending its long-standing partnership with T-Mobile to include managed services, software development, AI innovation and UScellular integration.
Amdocs evolution on two fronts
With the aOS launch, Amdocs—historically one of the biggest fish in the traditional telco OSS/BSS pond—is pivoting to more of an enterprise technology platform play. Telecom will be one of its key verticals alongside financial services, Chua noted.
"This isn't a surprise since they've been telegraphing this to us for the past year," he said.
Amdocs could provide a solution to telcos' AI ROI problem by addressing one for their biggest pain points: aging OSS/BSS systems that were never meant to keep pace with AI. It could also aid telcos as they try to transform their own business models.
"On the first front, [Amdocs is] leveraging [the] generative AI and agentic wave as a mechanism to modernize its core telecom business while creating what management describes as 'a new long-term growth engine,'" said Chua.
Amdocs scored a big coup at last year's Nvidia GTC event in San Jose, when the chipmaker's chief Jensen Huang highlighted the vendor in one of presentation slides. Partnerships with Google, Microsoft and AWS have also helped position Amdocs as heading into the AI future.
"I see the launch of aOS ... as part of their pivot in refreshing BSS/OSS workflows across multiple use cases," said Chua. "They are looking to own the 'cognitive layer' of telecom operations rather than remain a traditional software vendor. I guess we'll see more at MWC 2026."
More on the pivot
Non-telco verticals are still a small slice of Amdocs' revenues — estimated at around 10%, according to Chua.
But Amdocs has been assembling capabilities to serve regulated, mission-critical industries beyond telecommunications—most notably financial services—for years now, Chua noted.
"The acquisitions of Sourced Group ($75M, 2021) and Astadia (2023) were moves to acquire cloud migration and mainframe modernization expertise targeting banks, insurers, government agencies, and healthcare organizations," he said. "These industries also have the telco's characteristics of legacy IT complexity, regulatory burden and massive transaction volumes."
The coupling of fiscal Q1 earnings, a dividend increase, $146 million in share repurchases and the CEO succession announcement are designed to convey Amdocs' confidence in its new direction. Additionally, tying these announcements to major customer renewals (T-Mobile, Vodafone Germany) and the closure of Amdocs' recent acquisition of Matrixx are likely meant to give Hortig a leg up as he takes the reins, Chua added.
As Group President of the American Business Group, Hortig holds a relationship with the U.S. hyperscalers and AT&T, which is one of Amdocs' largest customers.
Fierce Network reached out to Amdocs for comment and will update this story when we hear back.