24 Jul 2024

AI1440: Enabling our customers to become a better version of themselves

AI is a journey.  A journey we a few years ago when we began exploring its application across internal systems, network infrastructure and customer engagement. Today, we use AI to automate solutions, to enhance the customer experience, for the network planning, optimising our retail presence and even model what technologies we should deploy. But our ambitions are far greater, and will help shape the customers we support and the nations we serve.

The collective thinking of the business world today is focused on how AI can be used to either sell more or cut costs.  According to McKinsey’s State of AI 2024 Survey1, 72% of organisations worldwide say they are now using AI for at least one function - with the major applications being to drive sales through AI-supported marketing and product development, or to cut costs by automating processes in areas such as human resources and supply chain management.  

While we are interested (as every company should be) in the efficiency and cost savings that AI could deliver, our primary driver is how we can use AI to augment the skills and competencies of our customers. Rather than just delivering gigabytes of data or some digital services, we want to offer our customers a better version of themselves.

Supporting Local Languages

We see the potential to create local language copilots for communities where we can create better doctors, teachers, parents, bankers or farmers. This is why we are investing in the development local language models where languages such as Kazakh, Uzbek, Ukrainian, Urdu, Bengali are all supported by AI large language models (LLMs).

Gen AI cannot proceed without high quality data and few organisations are better placed that digital operators to provide the streams of rich data available from our digital businesses. For example, the training of speech integrated LLMs will be based on interaction with customers, and we are able to collect anonymised vocal data that will help LLMs to understand how people speak, interact, and respond so that we can build models based on real customers that power systems speaking as our customers speak.

Our vision is to empower our customers with AI technology that will support and engage them for every one of the 1440 minutes that constitute a day – a strategy we call AI1440.  There is no question that generative AI is moving fast, and we must ensure that our subscribers, and the wider consumer market, have access to these technologies. We see augmented intelligence as a critical part of people’s daily lives and are working to make this happen. 

Applying Augmented Intelligence

VEON is structured into three operational streams; our infrastructure, our digital operator model and our digital services. We believe that AI technology can bring value across all our operations, but the greatest focus will be on the customer experience where AI-based recommendation engines can be transformational in areas such as entertainment and fintech. It is critical that we use AI to engage customers and support them with the products they need.

To provide some examples, in Kazakhstan, we have built a Kazakh language LLM to support the 10.7 million customers who are monthly active users of our digital services.  Our digital operator Beeline Kazakhstan, and one of the country’s major telecommunications companies, has driven the development of the Kazakh language LLM though its QazCode software development company.  This LLM is now being integrated into Beeline’s digital financial services, entertainment, and self-service platforms to provide services in the primary language of the population.

We are also using AI to protect the Kazakhstan environment. In the wildfire-prone Kostanay region, we have teamed up with a government organisation to create an augmented intelligence smoke detection system. With automated 34 cameras mounted on telecom towers, the system has already alerted local authorities to 51 potential forest fires, allowing swift and effective responses. 

And in case investment in AI is perceived as future technology that is still at an early experimental stage, I should point out that Beeline Kazakhstan’s commitment to AI is already helping to drive business growth with revenues increasing by 22.1% YoY during 2023 – an increase that was supported by a 39.7% increase in monthly active users of its digital services.  

Our investments into AI are not just to reduce costs or increase revenues, but also to enhance lives and livelihoods of customers, and build digital economies in the countries we operate in. AI has the potential to change economies, change the society, and we are focused on how we can really make an impact. And these initiatives are self-reinforcing; when you beneficially impact a country’s economy and societies through new technologies and services, these will also become the revenue drivers that create future growth.


1McKinsey Survey “The state of Ai in early 2024”: McKinsey
www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai