What’s up with… BT, KPN, SoftBank

• BT launches AI portfolio, including AI Receptionist
• KPN names Vladimir Cibic as new CTO
• SoftBank completes three-stage OpenAI investment

In today’s industry news roundup: BT makes a raft of announcements, including a suite of AI tools aimed at helping UK businesses; KPN appoints Vladimir Cibic as CTO, while COO Wouter Stammeijer is named CFO; SoftBank now owns around 13% of OpenAI after completing a three-stage investment plan with a $10bn transaction; and much more!

BT Group’s B2B division, BT Business, has launched a new solution aimed at giving UK businesses access to a suite of secure and practical AI solutions. With the launch of AI from BT, the UK telco says it hopes to help UK businesses adopt AI with confidence on the back of research it commissioned, which found that more than half (56%) of small business owners say they are not seeing the full potential of AI. BT is also launching a free AI Adoption Hub, which will provide practical guides, prompt packs, expert insights, and real-world examples of businesses using AI, with the aim of giving businesses the confidence to unlock the value of AI and work more smartly and safely. Jon James, CEO at BT Business, said: “AI has the potential to be a huge boost to small businesses and to drive the UK’s growth, but many businesses are struggling to know how to begin and how to adopt simply and securely. That's why BT – the UK’s most trusted network for business – has created AI from BT: A portfolio of practical, secure AI solutions backed by BT's expertise and support.”

Phone calls remain the number one way customers prefer to contact a business, so it comes as no surprise that the first solution BT Business is launching as part of its new AI portfolio is AI Receptionist, which helps businesses manage customer enquiries around the clock. BT found that 75% of potential customers will give businesses three call attempts before giving up on them. Further research from BT, based on the results of a poll conducted by Censuswide, found small businesses are struggling to keep up with customer enquiries and are losing out on growth as a result, with two-thirds (67%) saying they miss at least one call on an average day that they believe results in lost business: BT estimates that revenues lost as a result of those missed calls amounts to £3.7bn per year. AI Receptionist answers calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can handle routine enquiries, according to BT, whilst also offering simplified appointment management and the ability to integrate with Outlook and Google Calendar. It can also transcribe conversations and generate insights from customer interactions. It will be available for businesses on flexible contracts through a self-service portal and can work on any UK fixed or mobile network.

And it isn’t just AI on BT’s agenda. Earlier this year, the operator announced it was resuscitating the BT Mobile brand and it is following that up by bringing back BT TV, which will “launch” later this month. BT previously offered sports and TV packages and even had the rights to broadcast Premier League football, before spinning BT Sport off in partnership with Warner Bros Discovery to create TNT Sports. BT TV brings together live TV and streaming services on one of two BT-branded boxes – either the BT TV Box Pro or the more streamlined BT TV Box Edge. Users will have the ability to pause and rewind live TV content, juggle multiple apps and subscriptions, and buy premium content, such as sports channels. It marks a big turnaround for the BT brand in the consumer market after it began to focus on EE as its primary consumer play under previous management. EE still exists, and also offers its own TV service, so it will be interesting to see where BT TV sits in the operator’s plans. The announcement follows a similar move from  UK mobile operator Vodafone, which launched its own TV set-top box just last month.

KPN has appointed Vladimir Cibic, who has worked at the Dutch telco since 2000, as its CTO with effect from 1 November 2026. Cibic has held various IT, digital and customer experience responsibilities at KPN, including the role of chief information security officer (CISO). “His broad technological knowledge and proven track record in leading digital transformations enable him to contribute to the further transformation of the organisation and secure digital service delivery,” noted KPN in this announcement (in Dutch). The executive with current responsibility for KPN’s networks and digital tech, chief operating officer Wouter Stammeijer, is being promoted to the role of CFO, also as of 1 November: He has also previously held the roles of head of investor relations and chief strategy officer at the telco. Both will be members of a slimmed down executive board, as will Chantal Vergouw, KPN’s head of business services. Joost Farwerck, CEO and chairman of the executive board, noted: “I am pleased that Wouter is taking the step to the CFO position and we welcome Vladimir to our team. With the reappointment of Chantal, we ensure her continued commitment to our business clients. Thanks to these appointments, we can immediately focus on further accelerating the execution of our plans. They know the organisation and strategy well and have made a valuable contribution to this over the past few years. I look forward to continuing the collaboration within our board.” 

SoftBank Group, the global tech and infrastructure investment firm and parent company of Japanese telco SoftBank Corp, has completed its three-stage investment in OpenAI with a $10bn transaction. Its total investment in OpenAI, which has reportedly postponed the launch of its Astra 6.1 model due to safety concerns, has now reached $64.6bn and its stake in the AI giant has now reached 13%. 

And there’s more from SoftBank Group… The company has completed its acquisition of infrastructure asset manager DigitalBridge – which manages investments in datacentres, mobile towers, fibre access networks, small cells and network edge infrastructure – in a deal valued at $3.1bn: Speculation about the move first surfaced at the end of 2025. DigitalBridge is now a controlled subsidiary of SoftBank Group and will “continue to operate as a separately managed platform, led by Marc Ganzi,” noted SoftBank. 

Only weeks after Totogi CEO Danielle Rios told the audience at the AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf about how it’s important for mobile operators to use AI to better understand how their networks deliver value and how best to allocate capex, the vendor has announced that Viva Bolivia, the third-largest operator in the Latin American country, is to use the Totogi Ontology platform to allocate network investment “based on the revenue attributable to each cell site, not capacity metrics alone”. The vendor explained: “The Totogi Ontology connects Viva’s commercial and network systems, including vendor and homegrown applications running on-premises and in the Microsoft Azure public cloud, into one model of the business that decisions can run on, without replacing any of them. The ontology sees the whole business, all sites, all the time, and because the model is reusable, network investment is the first decision it improves, not the last. With that model, cost to serve, once known only as a company-wide total, becomes visible per customer and per site.” The telco’s CEO, Ryan Alvarez, noted: “Every vendor says they do AI. Totogi is the only one whose AI actually understands how our business works. For us, this was never just about the network. It tells us where we actually make money and why, and gives us the foundation to make decisions that grow our business.”

San Diego-based wireless broadband technology vendor Inseego has completed the acquisition of Nokia’s fixed wireless access (FWA) customer premises equipment (CPE) unit, an M&A deal that was first announced in April this year. Nokia is investing $10m in Inseego in return for 1.9 million shares, giving the giant Finnish vendor an 11% stake in the company: With Inseego’s share price currently standing at $4.08, that stock is worth about $7.75m. Nokia also has the right to buy a further 800,000 Insego shares for $4.26 per share. Inseego, meanwhile, gets Nokia’s FWA CPE portfolio and the ongoing support of about 250 staff, some of whom are joining Inseego and “Nokia personnel who will continue to support the business under a transition services agreement”. In addition, Nokia will pay Inseego an additional $10m in cash during the next couple of weeks “in support of Inseego’s engineering investment to drive the interoperability of its device OS and cloud platform with certain of Nokia’s technology ecosystems over the coming year.” Inseego’s CEO, Juho Sarvikas, who has previously extolled the virtues of the deal for his company, stated: “With the acquisition complete, Inseego enters its next chapter as the global wireless broadband leader. We now have the scale, technology and global reach to support carriers across business, residential and mobile use cases.” 

Construction machinery manufacturer Komatsu has partnered with NTT Docomo Business and STC Group to launch a telematics internet of things (IoT) system for its solutions in Saudi Arabia. The enterprise division of Japanese telco NTT Docomo and STC are supporting the construction firm in expanding its Komtrax telematics and remote monitoring system into the Middle Eastern country by providing IoT connectivity solutions and expertise for the project. Komtrax allows construction firms to remotely monitor their equipment and provides services including data analytics and predictive maintenance using a remote monitoring system that wirelessly captures operational data. NTT Docomo Business is handling the solution design and end-to-end delivery, while STC is providing local expertise, connectivity services and technology, including SIMs and its connectivity management platform.

– The staff, TelecomTV