- Статьи
- Economy
- A tempting application: mobile operators have begun to provide customers with access to AI
A tempting application: mobile operators have begun to provide customers with access to AI
There is a new trend in the Russian cellular market: operators have started providing customers with access to neural networks. MTS launched this service in early November, followed by Yota and Beeline a little earlier. As a rule, users are offered to communicate with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc. for money. The sale of access to free Western AI, which is closed to the Russian Federation, may lead to sanctions against communications operators and litigation with their developers, lawyers warn. Experts call the actions of the operators a necessary measure: they have few tools to attract and retain subscribers.
What mobile operators offer
A new trend has emerged in the Russian cellular market — mobile operators have begun to attract customers with access to neural networks. So, in early November, MTS launched such a service. It differs in that it offers ready-made communication scenarios, without the need to formulate complex requests, the company told Izvestia.
"In the future, this approach opens up opportunities for launching a whole range of personal AI assistants that will make the subscriber's life more comfortable," says Yuri Nefedov, Vice president for Retail Business at the company.
Previously, Vimpelcom launched such a service, but it has a different approach to providing access to neural networks.
—The neural network showcase allows users to access a set of AI tools in Telegram and VK mini-applications without having to use foreign cards or undergo complex registration," Alexey Karev, Beeline's product marketing director, told Izvestia.
According to him, subscribers have access to neural networks for working with texts, images, video and audio, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.
In June, Yota launched a chatbot on Telegram with access to 11 popular AI platforms, including OpenAI o3, two models from China's DeepSeek, Grok-3, and Russia's YandexGPT. T2 and Megafon also offer clients "collections" of neural networks, the companies told Izvestia.
The field for competition in the mobile communications market is now extremely limited, so operators are trying to strengthen tariffs with additional services, including access to neural networks, said Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group. According to him, this makes it possible to increase the attractiveness of tariffs. He recalled that now the most famous AI product in Russia is Alice.
— This is the only competitor to operator solutions that is constantly available. Tariff plans act as an intermediate link that provides more or less easy access to third-party neural networks, products and algorithms. And this is in demand," the expert says.
In the near future, Alice AI will be able to run errands through AI agents - book tables in restaurants, enroll in beauty salons, and find products by parameters, Yandex told Izvestia. It is already available in search, the Alice app, the browser, and will soon appear in Yandex Go: you can order a taxi, food, or delivery directly in the chat, without switching between services.
Access to foreign neural networks
In the eyes of subscribers, Russian mobile operators differ from each other only in their corporate colors, says Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research. Therefore, their desire to differentiate themselves from competitors is natural, these are attempts to increase revenues, he noted. But attempts to trade access to other people's neural networks are a controversial practice, the expert believes.
— Some of the services offered in the packages (for example, DeepSeek or Flux) are available in Russia and are free. At the same time, the owners of the Claude and Gemini neural networks (the American companies Anthropic and Google, respectively) blocked their work in Russia, and the sale of access to them may be regarded by regulators in the United States as a violation of sanctions regimes, with unpleasant consequences for violators, warns Leonid Konik.
The problem, according to the expert, is that the operators' attempt to "ride" the topic of neural networks resembles their previous initiatives with smart home services. About 10-12 years ago, operators tried to lock in such services for themselves, but the mass consumer was not ready to pay for them then. When the market matured, users independently purchased ready—made Chinese solutions — leak sensors, smart lighting and other systems - without the participation of operators and without regular payments for free de facto services, he added.
Izvestia sent requests to Open AI (the developer of ChatGPT), Google and Anthropic.
Russian law does not prohibit the use of blocking circumvention technologies to access legal content and services, said Dmitry Gorbunov, partner at Rustam Kurmaev & Partners. What is not included in the register of prohibited information will not be prosecuted. But on the part of copyright holders in the form of neural network developers who should not officially work in the Russian Federation, questions may arise, he does not exclude.
"If Russian operators provide paid access bypassing geographical restrictions set by copyright holders, this may well be considered a violation of the terms of use of these services and potentially as an aid to circumventing US sanctions restrictions," he does not exclude.
Although, even if developers file lawsuits, the current moratorium on the protection of intellectual property rights from unfriendly countries by special presidential decree will not allow them to fully exercise this right, the expert added. According to him, such copyright holders cannot effectively defend their rights in Russian courts. But the actions of operators may potentially lead to increased control by developers to monitor the operation of services and tighten locks, as well as impose personal sanctions on top managers of these cellular companies, he concludes.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
