Dive Brief:

• T-Mobile is focusing on making it easier for consumers to switch over from other carriers and upgrade their phones through digital CX improvements, executives said on a Q3 2025 earnings call last week.
• Three-quarters of customers’ recent iPhone upgrades during T-Mobile’s preorder window were made through digital channels, and new signups are expected to become increasingly digital as well, according to COO Srini Gopalan. The company will emphasize digital CX with its T-Life app and IntentCX AI platform.
• “As I look forward now, the foundation for the next big leap has already been laid,” Gopalan said during the call. “We have the opportunity to widen this differentiation even further with network leadership and digital transformation.”

Dive Insight:

T-Mobile executives believe its wireless network is strong, and they are aiming to simplify the customer acquisition journey to further improve the carrier’s value proposition.

“On the one hand, you have our growing network leadership, not just in reality, but in perception as well,” said Gopalan, who will take on the CEO role in November. “And that's complemented by our digital transformation, which just takes pain out of the customer process.”

The emphasis on digital acquisition and upgrades is fundamentally about going after and fixing common points of frustration, according to Gopalan.

In the past, upgrading a service plan was an approximately 36 step process. T-Mobile has since been able to “bring that down to something which feels like a transaction you're doing in 2025 rather than in 2002” through the T-Life app, Gopalan said.

The streamlining effort is showing signs of paying off. T-Mobile recorded its best-ever total net postpaid customer additions at 2.3 million in the third quarter of 2025, according to a company earnings report. 

T-Life is at the center of T-Mobile’s digital engagement with more than 85 million app installs, according to Gopalan. However, it’s not the company’s only digital investment.

IntentCX, which was announced in September last year, is starting to quietly come together, according to President and CEO Mike Sievert. The platform is being built in partnership with OpenAI with the goal of helping T-Mobile proactively take next steps for customers.

The first elements of the program are rolling out to T-Mobile customers, though he only hinted at the form they are taking.

“AI is great at making the complicated uncomplicated, and we're seeing that in our upgrade flows,” Sievert said. “You start with your existing customers that already know how to transact with you, but there's obvious extensions here.”