Veon is making an increasingly bold claim about the future of telecoms: the industry’s next battleground is not networks or even digital services, but intelligence itself.
In an interview with Developing Telecoms, Lasha Tabidze (pictured, left), Chief Digital Operations Officer at Veon, and Ilya Polshakov (pictured, right), Director of New Business Development at Kyivstar, outlined how the group is evolving from a traditional operator into what it calls an “AI-native” service provider – one aiming to be relevant to customers every minute of the day.
From digital telco to “AI 1440”
Veon’s transformation began with its “Digital Operator 1440” strategy – named after the number of minutes in a day – designed to shift the company away from selling connectivity bundles towards embedding itself into customers’ daily lives.
That meant building services across four core verticals: financial services, healthcare, education and entertainment. Crucially, these were not positioned as add-ons, but as standalone businesses with their own value propositions.
The results, according to Tabidze, are already visible. By the third quarter of 2025, Veon’s digital monthly active users surpassed its traditional telecom user base for the first time. The company now counts more than 45 million super app users, alongside tens of millions using its fintech, health and entertainment platforms.
But the group is already moving beyond that phase.
“Now we are shifting from digital services to intelligent services,” Tabidze said. “For us, AI is not artificial – it is augmented intelligence.”
Sovereign AI as telecom infrastructure
At the core of Veon’s next phase is what it calls “AI 1440” – embedding augmented intelligence across its ecosystem while building locally trained large language models (LLMs) in each market.
This is not just a technology play, but a strategic positioning around sovereignty.
Rather than relying solely on global models from players like Google or Meta, Veon is developing proprietary layers trained on local languages, dialects and datasets, often in partnership with governments and institutions.
The rationale is twofold: relevance and trust.
“These models must be trained locally, governed locally and aligned with national priorities,” Tabidze said. “That creates digital confidence.”
Polshakov added that telecom operators are uniquely positioned to deliver this, thanks to their existing infrastructure footprint. Data centres, fibre networks and low-latency environments – traditionally used for connectivity – are becoming critical for AI inference and deployment.
“AI infrastructure is complementary to telecom infrastructure,” he said. “We already have the backbone.”
Super apps, satellite and scale
Veon’s ecosystem approach is also being reinforced by its super app strategy, which aggregates services into a single interface while supporting a wider partner ecosystem.
While super apps have struggled to gain traction in Western markets, Veon sees strong adoption across its footprint in Asia and Eastern Europe, where smartphones are often the primary – and sometimes only – digital access point.
This is being combined with expanded connectivity models, including satellite partnerships such as direct-to-cell initiatives with Starlink.
In Ukraine, Kyivstar has already registered up to five million users on its direct-to-cell service within months of launch, using it to extend coverage and ensure service continuity during outages.
“Even if terrestrial networks are disrupted, customers can still access digital services, payments and emergency tools,” Polshakov said.
Ukraine as a testbed for resilience
Nowhere is Veon’s strategy being tested more intensely than in Ukraine, where Kyivstar continues to operate under wartime conditions.
The operator has invested heavily in energy resilience – deploying thousands of batteries and generators to keep base stations running amid infrastructure attacks – while accelerating its push into non-terrestrial connectivity.
But beyond connectivity, the crisis has reinforced the importance of digital services.
“With only a few hours of electricity per day, people still need access to healthcare, payments and information,” Polshakov said. “This is where the digital ecosystem becomes critical.”
Kyivstar is also expanding into enterprise and government services, including data analytics, agricultural technologies and real-time positioning systems, positioning itself as a broader digital infrastructure provider.
Growth markets, not “challenging” ones
Veon’s geographic footprint – spanning countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan – is often described as complex or high-risk. Tabidze rejects that framing.
“These are not just challenging markets – they are exciting markets,” he said, pointing to their scale, young populations and high levels of digital demand.
In many of these regions, smartphones serve as the primary gateway to the internet, creating an opportunity for telecom operators to play a central role in economic and social development.
This is particularly evident in fintech. Veon’s JazzCash platform in Pakistan now processes transactions equivalent to more than 10% of the country’s GDP, while enabling microcredit for everyday needs – from small business inputs to daily fuel costs.
The next three years: scale and integration
Looking ahead, Veon expects its digital ecosystem to continue growing at over 30% annually, with a goal of at least doubling its user base within two to three years.
But executives emphasise that long-term targets are secondary to immediate execution – particularly in volatile markets like Ukraine.
“We don’t know what will happen in three years,” Polshakov said. “We invest now. We build resilience now.”
For Veon, the direction of travel is clear: telecom operators are no longer just connectivity providers or even digital platforms. They are becoming orchestrators of national-scale digital ecosystems – layered with AI, anchored in local infrastructure, and increasingly intertwined with government and economic development.
If that vision holds, the industry’s future may not be defined by faster networks, but by smarter ones.
