Veon chief: 65 million non-telecom customers show AI path

Veon Group counts 220 million customers, and 65 million of them buy no telecom service from the operator at all. CEO Kaan Terzioglu offered that figure during a keynote at MWC26 in Doha, Qatar, as evidence that the company has already moved beyond selling connectivity — and as a down payment on his broader argument about AI.

The number matters because it frames Veon's digital pivot in hard currency rather than aspiration. Revenue from digital and financial services keeps growing, Terzioglu said, and each new service pulls in customers who never touched the operator's mobile or fixed networks. That is the commercial reality behind the keynote's loftier themes.

How do non-terrestrial networks fit in?

Terzioglu argued that pairing non-terrestrial networks with existing land-based infrastructure has expanded both the reach and the reliability of communications. Convergence of the two layers, in his telling, delivers the ubiquitous connectivity that AI-related developments need in order to thrive.

The operator's Ukrainian unit Kyivstar is the showcase. Terzioglu highlighted Kyivstar's use of SpaceX's Starlink service to keep the country connected during its war with Russia — proof, he suggested, that connectivity can hold up even under wartime conditions. He added that Veon's businesses in other markets face their own distinct challenges, which the same combined satellite-plus-terrestrial approach can help overcome.

The network layer, he stressed, remains fundamental to Veon's digital ambitions. However far the operator stretches into financial and digital services, none of it functions without pipes underneath.

What does AI actually require?

Stable connectivity is one precondition. The other, Terzioglu argued, is a change in mindset — and here he pushed back on the narrow view of AI as an efficiency tool.

For him, the technology is "not about doing things we do today faster or cheaper". It is about "doing things that we don't do today because we don't have time, resources or priorities don't allow us". In other words, the value sits in the backlog of ideas operators never got around to, not in trimming the cost of the ones they already run.

He also rejected the argument that AI will disrupt the job market. Used properly, he said, the technology can spur recruitment rather than cut it. A convenient line from a chief executive, perhaps, but he did at least pair it with a concrete shift in what operators sell — the 65 million non-telecom customers being the arithmetic behind the optimism.

Who guards the AI-driven digital world?

Terzioglu turned next to data security, which he described as both a driver of AI adoption and a problem AI itself can solve. Rising demand for protection of information is, in his view, a commercial opportunity for operators rather than a burden.

He believes Veon and its peers have "a responsibility to be the guardians" of the AI-driven digital world. That role, he noted, builds on capabilities operators already run, specifically "credentials management and authentication". The implication: operators hold the keys to digital identity today, and AI multiplies both the value and the risk of that position.

It is a vendor-adjacent pitch in tone, but it rests on assets Veon genuinely owns. Authentication and credential systems are incumbent operator infrastructure, not marketing invention.

Where does this leave Veon?

The keynote sketches an operator that treats war-zone resilience, satellite convergence, digital services and AI stewardship as one continuum rather than separate initiatives. Kyivstar's Starlink use during the conflict with Russia is the hard proof point; the 65 million non-telecom customers are the commercial one.

Terzioglu gave no rollout dates or investment figures at the Doha session, so the timeline stays vague. What is concrete is the direction: more digital and financial revenue, satellite paired with terrestrial where geography or war demands it, and AI applied to work operators currently leave undone.