The Last Hundred Feet
Why Wi-Fi Matters in America’s AI Future
Washington is finally having the right conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. That’s good news. But much of the debate overlooks the network Americans rely on every day.
AI doesn’t end in a data center. It doesn’t end at a fiber network. It certainly doesn’t end at a cell tower. It ends where people work, learn, manufacture, receive health care, and live. And overwhelmingly, that’s over Wi-Fi.
Yet that final connection is only as strong as the infrastructure supporting it. Every AI interaction depends on an infrastructure chain that spans data centers, electric power generation, transmission networks, long-haul fiber, broadband access, and in-building wireless technologies. Each layer must continue evolving to deliver AI from cloud to consumer.
Every AI request follows the same journey. It begins in a data center, travels over high-capacity broadband networks, and reaches users over Wi-Fi. That last hundred feet is where nearly every AI interaction actually happens.
As generative AI applications evolve into autonomous AI agents, industrial automation, immersive collaboration, and intelligent infrastructure, network expectations will extend well beyond download and upload speeds. Low latency, resiliency, wired and wireless reliability, and seamless mobility will increasingly define the user experience.
If America wants to lead the world in AI, we need to pay just as much attention to that final connection as we do to everything that comes before it.
The AI future is here
The first generation of the Internet connected people to information. The next generation will connect intelligence to everything around us. That may sound like a subtle distinction, but it represents one of the biggest shifts in the history of networking.
Today, AI is moving rapidly beyond simple chatbots and search tools. Enterprises are deploying intelligent assistants, manufacturers are integrating machine vision and robotics, healthcare organizations are expanding AI-assisted diagnostics, and educators are exploring personalized learning environments. While each application places different demands on broadband infrastructure, they all share one common requirement: reliable connectivity from cloud to endpoint.
For decades, wireless networks have been designed primarily around people carrying smartphones. AI changes that equation. The future won’t simply involve more devices. It will involve dramatically more intelligence operating simultaneously around every user.
Think about what that means in practice. A family of four may soon rely on multiple smartphones, laptops, televisions, security cameras, smart appliances, voice assistants, and connected sensors. These devices connect over Wi-Fi. What AI changes is how they behave. Instead of occasional bursts of activity, home networks will increasingly support continuous communication among devices, cloud services, and AI agents, creating dense, always-on local networks.
Now multiply that transformation across the economy.
Offices will increasingly support AI assistants, collaborative software agents, smart conference rooms, occupancy sensors, and autonomous security systems. Warehouses will connect autonomous forklifts, machine vision systems, inventory robots, digital twins, and AI agents coordinating logistics in real time. Manufacturing plants will rely on AI-powered robotics, predictive maintenance, and automated quality inspection, while hospitals, schools, airports, ports, campuses, and retail centers will deploy increasingly intelligent, connected systems.
Many of these environments will also rely on edge computing, where selected AI workloads are processed closer to users instead of entirely within centralized data centers. That distributed architecture can reduce latency, improve privacy, and increase application responsiveness while complementing the tremendous computing power delivered from hyperscale facilities.
The defining characteristic of the AI economy won’t simply be more traffic. It will be more machine density. Every person, business, and institution will be surrounded by more connected intelligence operating simultaneously, creating persistent background communications, greater uplink demand, lower-latency expectations, and a need for reliable performance in environments where hundreds or even thousands of intelligent devices work together.
Wi-Fi was made for this moment
Those are exactly the kinds of environments modern Wi-Fi was designed to support. That’s why Wi-Fi deserves a much more prominent place in America’s AI strategy.
Today, Wi-Fi carries the overwhelming majority of Internet traffic generated by consumers and businesses. Eighty to ninety percent of all smartphone data is ultimately offloaded onto Wi-Fi. Virtually every fixed broadband connection ends with Wi-Fi inside a home or business. Enterprise AI deployments across factories, hospitals, and campuses depend on high-capacity local wireless networks.
Most Americans spend most of their lives in homes, schools, and workplaces. Those environments rely overwhelmingly on Wi-Fi. As AI becomes embedded in daily life, its success will increasingly depend on the performance of local Wi-Fi networks.
Fortunately, the United States made a visionary decision by opening the entire 1,200 megahertz of the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use. That decision positioned America as the global leader in next-generation Wi-Fi and accelerated deployment of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, giving consumers, businesses, and innovators dramatically more wireless capacity.
As next-generation Wi-Fi continues to evolve, capabilities such as Multi-Link Operation, wider channels, improved spectrum utilization, and lower latency will help support environments where hundreds of AI-enabled devices communicate simultaneously. These advances will become increasingly important as AI shifts from isolated applications to continuous, always-on intelligence integrated into daily life.
But that decision is not the endpoint.
Successful spectrum policy anticipates demand rather than reacting after networks become congested.
Spectrum policy is one important component of AI readiness, alongside continued investment in broadband infrastructure, resilient transport networks, and ongoing innovation across access technologies.
The Internet didn’t stop evolving after Wi-Fi 4 or Wi-Fi 5, and AI will accelerate demand far beyond what previous generations of wireless networking were designed to support.
America’s remaining spectrum opportunities are increasingly scarce, making every allocation decision more consequential. As AI drives an explosion in connected devices and local wireless demand, policymakers should ensure sufficient spectrum remains available for the unlicensed ecosystem that powers nearly every AI experience. America cannot afford to constrain the technology that connects most people and most AI to the Internet.
Countries around the world are deciding how to allocate spectrum to support AI, advanced computing, and next-generation wireless technologies. Nations that provide sufficient unlicensed spectrum will attract investment, entrepreneurship, device development, and new AI-powered industries.
Building an AI-ready broadband ecosystem
America’s AI future will depend upon continued collaboration among policymakers, broadband providers, equipment manufacturers, technology innovators, and standards organizations. Investments in broadband networks, advances in Wi-Fi, the continued evolution of access technologies, and thoughtful spectrum policy are complementary, not competing, components of a national AI strategy.
The broadband industry’s decades-long commitment to private investment has created one of the world’s most advanced broadband connectivity platforms. As AI accelerates, maintaining that leadership will require continued innovation and investment across every layer of the communications ecosystem, from hyperscale computing and transport networks to broadband access and the in-building wireless technologies that ultimately connect intelligence to people and businesses. Delivering that vision will also require the collaboration and expertise of the engineers, technicians, operators, equipment manufacturers, and innovators who design, deploy, and maintain the broadband infrastructure powering America’s AI future.
The United States has an opportunity to remain the global leader, but winning the AI race won’t depend solely on bigger data centers, faster processors, or more powerful cloud infrastructure. It will depend on ensuring intelligence can move seamlessly from those data centers to the people, businesses, hospitals, schools, factories, and communities that use it every day.
The first phase of the Internet connected billions of people. The next phase will connect billions of intelligent systems. America led the world by recognizing the transformative power of unlicensed spectrum and Wi-Fi before the rest of the world did. We now have the opportunity to do it again.
Hon. Cory Gardner
President & CEO, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association
Cory Gardner is a former U.S. Senator and Member of Congress from Colorado who was named President & CEO of NCTA – The Internet & Television Association in September 2025. In this role, Cory leads one of the largest trade associations in Washington, D.C., representing the connectivity and content industries. Cory’s public service began in the Colorado House of Representatives, where he served in leadership before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. After two successful terms in the House, Cory was elected to the United States Senate in 2014, where he served until 2021.
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