Telstra has teamed up with IT service provider, Cognizant, in a five-year strategic partnership that is set to transform the use of artificial intelligence across the telecommunications business.

Cognizant will work with Telstra to implement modern product engineering practices, improve customer experience, speed up time to market, and leverage its global capabilities. The partnership is designed to enable more efficient software engineering and IT operations, decommission legacy systems, and introduce new ways of working to improve operational and workforce efficiency.

"We're on a journey of consolidation and simplification across Telstra, streamlining our operations to ensure sustainable growth, and selecting Cognizant as a strategic partner for our software engineering and IT function is a key part of that," said Group Executive Product and Technology at Telstra, Kim Krogh Andersen.

The partnership also aims to support employee experience by building a stronger engineering experience and fostering a modern and innovative culture within Telstra.

"Our strategic partnership with Cognizant will help us build our modern software engineering capability - defined by modern product engineering practices, the latest tools and a stable workforce," said Head of Software Engineering and IT at Telstra,Kieran O'Meara.

Cognizant CEO, Ravi Kumar, said the firm was excited to partner with Telstra. "Telstra is a global leader in the way they are using innovation to transform their products and customer experiences, and we are proud to support them on this journey as one of their strategic IT partners."

Cognizant Head of Asia Pacific and Japan, Jane Livesey, said: "This partnership signals a new era in professional services. From the outset this arrangement was constructed with a focus on customer centricity and saw us depart from conventional contracting and delivery models that the industry has used for decades. We have worked closely with Telstra to build a strategic partnership framework that allows us to share in Telstra's innovation goals, its risks and rewards."