The ETSI ENI Industry Specification Group, now comprising 60 organizations, defines a flexible general-purpose AI Engine designed to interface with Assisted Systems from multiple standards bodies like 3GPP and ITU to automate network operations across access, transport, and core layers. The group has identified five primary use case categories including infrastructure management, network assurance, and service orchestration, establishing the core functionalities required for the ENI Engine. A key architectural goal is enabling human-like intent expression, where the system translates user requests into network policies and execution plans while prioritizing security by design. ENI is actively evolving to integrate with other ETSI technologies such as MEC, NFV, and ZSM to support robust, manageable, and secure AI-driven network automation.
Keywords: ENI Engine, intent-driven, AI automation, Security by Design, open interfaces