Network asset recovery includes querying assets on a communications network to obtain a current inventory of the assets on the communications network and obtaining inventory data for the communications network from an inventory management database. The current inventory is compared with the inventory data from the inventory management database to identify a plurality of non-utilized assets. Asset type need data is obtained from a demand database and at least one of the non-utilized assets is identified for recovery based on the obtained asset type need data. The assets may be intelligent network elements and the communications network may be a telecommunications network.