ITU-T has a permanent secretariat called the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), which is based at the ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

However, the delays in producing texts, and translating them into other working languages, did not suit the fast pace of change in the telecommunications industry.

[7] The rise of the personal computer industry in the early 1980s created a new common practice among both consumers and businesses of adopting "bleeding edge" communications technology even if it was not yet standardized.

The time between an initial proposal of a draft document by a member company and the final approval of a full-status ITU-T Recommendation can now be as short as a few months (or less in some cases).

This makes the standardization approval process in the ITU-T much more responsive to the needs of rapid technology development than in the ITU's historical past.

The events cover a wide array of topics in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and attract high-ranking experts as speakers, and attendees from engineers to high-level management from all industry sectors.

[16] SGs are augmented by Focus Groups (FGs), an instrument created by ITU-T, providing a way to quickly react to ICT standardization needs and allowing great flexibility in terms of participation and working methods.

The key difference between SGs and FGs is that the latter have greater freedom to organize and finance themselves, and to involve non-members in their work, but they do not have the authority to approve Recommendations.

[18] This dramatic overhaul of standards-making by streamlining approval procedures was implemented in 2001 and is estimated to have cut the time involved in this critical aspect of the standardization process by 80 to 90 percent.

Besides streamlining the underlying procedures involved in the approval process, an important contributory factor to the use of AAP is electronic document handling.

After this Consent has been given, TSB announces the start of the AAP procedure by posting the draft text to the ITU-T website and calling for comments.

Often, a range of related Recommendations are further grouped within the series and given adjacent numbers, such as "H.200-H.499: Infrastructure of audiovisual services" or "H.260-H.279: Coding of moving video".

In addition to "regional preparatory meetings",[29] the ITU Secretariat developed 13 "Background Briefs on key issues" that were expected to be discussed at the conference.

[30] Convened by former ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Touré, the Conference, WCIT-12, was then held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, during the period 3–14 December 2014.

[31][32] The Standardization Sector of ITU also organizes AI for Good, the United Nations platform for the sustainable development of Artificial Intelligence.