Beyond Messaging: Putting Telcos Back at the Centre of the Value Chain
Business conversations have steadily migrated to OTT platforms, taking customer engagement—and an increasing share of conversational commerce—outside the telecom ecosystem. RCS changes that equation. It brings rich interactions into the native messaging inbox and gives operators an opportunity to regain a strategic role alongside these platforms.
The foundations are already in place. Telecom operators already hold key assets: native reach, trusted customer relationships and locally controlled infrastructure. Directly within the device’s default messaging inbox, RCS adds verified brand identity and immersive, interactive formats in a secure environment. Far from being incidental, the Verified Sender Identity feature is crucial: it authenticates businesses and helps users distinguish legitimate communications from phishing and fraud. According to the Datos Insights Study on Financial Services Trust, 88% of consumers place greater trust in messages displaying a verified company badge—demonstrating the power of verification in building confidence.
This creates a proposition fundamentally different from legacy SMS. Operators are no longer limited to transporting messages; they can enable rich, interactive and monetizable business conversations, while verified identity and operator-backed security position RCS as a premium environment. This enhanced level of security is precisely what supports a higher commercial value than standard SMS. The revenue outlook confirms the potential of this monetizable framework: Juniper Research projects global operator revenue from RCS Business Messaging to rise from $2 billion in 2026 to $6.5 billion by 2030 (RCS for Business Market: 2026-2030 report).
Keeping data, infrastructure and customer journeys under local management also supports sovereignty and compliance while reinforcing the operator’s position in the value chain.
“RCS gives telecom operators a rare opportunity to move beyond being simple connectivity providers and reclaim a central position in the B2B ecosystem. By bringing trusted, verified interactions back into the native inbox, Telcos can turn raw messaging infrastructure into a high-value engine for engagement and revenue,” explains Wojciech Łukawski, Central Europe CEO and Head of the Digital Virgo RCS Program.
Universal Reach: The Foundation for Brand Adoption at Scale
RCS has the potential to become a meaningful revenue engine, but only if brands and businesses can use it with the confidence and predictability of an established communication channel. Accelerating operator deployment and simplifying access across markets is therefore not solely a Telco priority: it is a shared market imperative involving telecom operators, Google, device manufacturers—particularly Apple—and service providers and aggregators such as Digital Virgo. The collective challenge is to move from fragmented deployments to consistent, market-wide availability.
Momentum is already building. Cisco/Webex last report records more than 90 operator deployments worldwide through Google Jibe. Yet activating more networks will not, by itself, create universal reach. RCS cannot generate true network effects if the experience varies according to the user’s operator, market or device. Cross-network interoperability and consistent implementation are essential to enable brands to design journeys once and deploy them reliably across audiences. Google’s collaboration with Telcos plays a structuring role here by helping to scale the Jibe ecosystem and build a unified, secure messaging infrastructure capable of competing with OTT platforms.
Apple Integration: A Prerequisite for Truly Universal Reach
Full integration across Apple’s device ecosystem remains a decisive condition for RCS to become a global messaging standard. RCS is a carrier-provided service whose availability depends on the user’s operator and market. To enable it on iPhones, carriers must pass Apple’s network and security testing, obtain authorization and deploy the official Carrier Bundle that activates RCS within the device settings. In parallel, Apple expects the carrier to provide a stable, GSMA-standard RCS server, either through its own IMS/RCS infrastructure or through a partner such as Google Jibe Cloud.
Consumer availability is only the first step. P2P messaging availability and A2P RCS Business Messaging readiness are two distinct stages of deployment. An operator may support RCS conversations between individuals without yet enabling enterprise clients to launch verified RBM agents and campaigns.
Technical Reach Must Be Matched by Commercial Accessibility
Technical coverage will not translate into adoption if the business model creates barriers for brands. Pricing must reflect the premium value of verified, secure and interactive RCS experiences without becoming prohibitive. Brands and merchants also need predictable costs, straightforward onboarding, reduced integration complexity and sufficient reach to justify long-term investment.
This requires operators, Google, service providers and aggregators to align their technical responsibilities and commercial expectations. Avoiding overpricing will be crucial: without broad brand participation, RCS cannot generate the traffic, use-case diversity and network effects required to scale and move from isolated campaigns to recurring B2B revenue from RCS Business Messaging.
“RCS will only reach its full potential if it becomes completely frictionless for brands to adopt. Scaling requires a trusted framework in which cross-network interoperability, clear ecosystem governance and local data sovereignty work together to drive real commercial value,” explains Wojciech Łukawski, Central Europe CEO and Head of the Digital Virgo RCS Program.
Expanding RCS into Intelligent Omnichannel Customer Journeys
Universal reach enables adoption, but value comes from what brands build on top of it. The first wave of RCS has demonstrated the impact of richer promotional messages. Its broader opportunity is to turn the native inbox into a measurable interface for complete business and customer journeys, connecting acquisition, engagement and activation with service access and customer care through rich, interactive experiences.
Another major opportunity lies in developing AI-powered conversational journeys within a broader omnichannel approach. A journey can begin through search, social media or an offline activation, continue in RCS and then lead to a service, another touchpoint or a customer-care agent. Digital Virgo is developing AI-powered agents capable of qualifying intent, personalizing interactions and guiding users towards the next relevant action—within secure infrastructure, defined business rules and human support where required.
Market Demand Is Already Taking Shape
Since the beginning of 2026, Digital Virgo has been deploying and testing numerous RCS campaigns across several high-value segments.
For media players, RCS creates a premium environment for live audience engagement through the deployment of live interactivity and audience monetization solutions that connect audience engagement with direct monetization in a trusted and verified environment.
For brands, RCS transforms acquisition campaigns into rich, immersive and engaging experiences. Across sectors such as hospitality, entertainment, e-commerce and digital services, the channel has been demonstrating that it can turn product launches, service promotions and subscription offers into measurable acquisition journeys. Emerging formats such as Click-to-RCS Ads via Google Ads further extend its potential for digital-service acquisition.
In mobility ticketing, ongoing pilots are exploring native, end-to-end journeys covering customer information, ticket purchases and service access—transforming ticketing into a native, frictionless and transactional channel.
These use cases and campaigns all demonstrate the engagement and conversion potential of RCS. As a measurable channel, it provides advanced KPIs and granular analytics covering delivery quality, reads, clicks, responses and overall journey performance. Pilot tests of live digital interactive experiences conducted by our teams in European markets recorded a 60% display rate via RCS. Among displayed messages, 20% generated an action or interaction, with overall conversion rates reaching up to 85%, demonstrating the potential to combine audience engagement with monetization performance.
Scaling these journeys is the next step towards transforming network reach into recurring business usage and establishing RCS as a transactional monetization channel.
From Conversation to Transaction: Unlocking a New Revenue Layer
RCS reaches its full strategic potential when a conversation can progress seamlessly from engagement to a commercial outcome. By connecting Business Messaging with billing and payment, telecom operators have the opportunity to turn the native inbox into a transactional environment—moving beyond premium communications to participate directly in conversational commerce.
Embedding payment capabilities within RCS enables customers to discover an offer, make a choice, complete a payment and access the purchased service within one continuous journey. By leveraging Direct Carrier Billing, operators can provide a seamless “one-click” payment experience without requiring a credit card. This creates opportunities across purchases, subscriptions, donations, ticketing and access to digital content or services.
Telcos have a distinctive competitive advantage: they combine a trusted, operator-backed communication channel with an established billing relationship. Connecting these assets allows them to link engagement and conversion with payment capabilities rather than leaving the transactional value of conversational commerce entirely to OTT platforms such as WhatsApp or Messenger.
Delivering this experience requires every component of the journey—conversation, payment, service fulfilment, reporting and customer care—to operate as one coherent system. Digital Virgo connects these capabilities and bridges the gap between brands and Telco networks by building end-to-end conversational journeys, integrating payment and enabling scalable commercial use cases across global markets. Positioning RCS as a fully monetizable distribution channel for brands and digital-service providers while enabling Telcos to capture transactional value alongside messaging revenues.
“The real breakthrough happens when engagement connects seamlessly with conversion. By embedding billing and payment capabilities directly into RCS journeys, Digital Virgo helps Telcos move beyond traditional messaging revenue and turn conversational commerce into a scalable transactional engine,” explains Wojciech Łukawski, Central Europe CEO and Head of the Digital Virgo RCS Program.
One Ecosystem, Clear Roles: Making RCS Revenue Scalable
Turning RCS into a scalable revenue channel requires more than technical interoperability: it demands clear governance across the entire ecosystem. Operators bring network infrastructure, customer reach, identity and billing capabilities; Google and Apple enable platform and device scale; brands create demand; and service providers and aggregators transform these capabilities into market-ready solutions.
Digital Virgo acts as the bridge between telecom networks and brands. By combining Telco capabilities with its merchant ecosystem, local presence and execution expertise, Digital Virgo connects stakeholders and manages the operational chain—from brand onboarding and journey design to campaign deployment, payment integration, reporting and customer care.
Clear governance is also a commercial requirement. Responsibilities, technical standards and revenue models must be aligned, while pricing must support brand adoption and reflect the value of verified messaging, richer interactions and integrated payments. Otherwise, fragmented integrations and inconsistent economics will limit scale.
This framework also addresses critical priorities such as data sovereignty. Keeping data, infrastructure and customer journeys under local management supports compliance, protects customer relationships and reinforces the operator’s strategic position.
By orchestrating the ecosystem from network infrastructure to commercial execution, Digital Virgo helps operators transform conversational capabilities into scalable B2B messaging and transactional revenues.
Turning RCS Momentum into Telco Growth
Messaging is the interface; the real value lies in enabling, managing and monetizing the entire business conversation. Telecom operators already possess the critical assets to lead in conversational commerce: trusted customer relationships, network infrastructure, identity capabilities and Direct Carrier Billing.
With clear ecosystem governance, locally controlled infrastructure, commercially viable models and integrated billing, RCS enables Telcos to move beyond message delivery and capture the value generated across the entire journey—from engagement and interaction to conversion and payment. The opportunity is here, but execution speed will be decisive in turning these assets into scalable B2B and transactional revenues.
Ready to turn RCS capabilities into a concrete growth roadmap? Digital Virgo can work with your teams through a strategic workshop to assess market readiness, define stakeholder roles and revenue models, identify priority use cases, and design an initial RCS journey integrating messaging and payment capabilities.
