There are some individuals or small teams that are starting to apply OAV in their production procedures - trying to make their daily activities easier and less error-prone. OAV capabilities of tools and suites are starting to be analysed. Scripts are developed to automate steps in production processes. Policies and procedures are starting to change to incorporate the OAV aspects. Selected department members are investigating technologies such as data analytics and AI and are gaining initial hands-on experience. Initial experimental virtual components are put into production.

Several cross-departmental teams are being formed around the chosen projects and in-depth investigation and integration of management components is underway. The goal is automation of chosen processes by using (and if required,  developing) compatible APIs and related data models. A virtual infrastructure is being set up in the production environment and virtual services are available for use. This leads to a gradual change in the organisational architecture - moving from a traditional closed/siloed approach to one using OAV functional components. The overall organisation attitude towards OAV is starting to change and trust in OAV technologies is rising. AI-based approaches and related advanced techniques are being sporadically used.

All components in place can be managed and queried via exposed APIs that share a common data model - enabling full automation and orchestration of all processes in the production environment. A platform-based approach is used to manage the organisation domain with well-defined functional components developed using decomposition and data deduplication techniques (e.g. there is a functional consistent single source of truth). All organisation policies and procedures are adapted accordingly. Hybrid (combined physical and virtual) services are also available in the service portfolio. The AI-based analytics enables fast response to alarms. All decision making is based on high-quality data. All stakeholders are invested in OAV and fully understand its values and benefits.

All network services and devices (virtual and physical) are now fully compatible and can be combined in flexible ways. All operations activities are AI-supported, and the implemented predictions and closed-loop processes enable the organisation to always be one step ahead. Agility and customer experience are the main drivers for change.

The network is fully self-optimising and all management interactions are made in the form of high-level business intentions. Self-service is brought to a new level - allowing users to define their own services and manage their lifecycle in an autonomous way using self-healing features when necessary. An open collaboration with high-level policies is established among ecosystems enabling self-composition of services across domains.