Timotheus Hoettges

Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Deutsche Telekom AG, Deutsche Telekom

Search every verified Timotheus Hoettges interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a late February 2024 speech at Mobile World Congress, Timotheus Hoettges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, discussed the company's approach to artificial intelligence. He stated that "nothing has affected every business model in the world" like AI and described it as "the biggest elephant" for the telecoms industry. Hoettges detailed several internal AI use cases, including a customer service tool that improved first-call resolution by over 50%, an employee service tool, and a system for planning fiber-optic network rollouts. He also noted that the company is training 20,000 employees on AI and advocated for a multi-LLM strategy, saying "don't rely on one llm own go into a multi llm strategy for your company." Hoettges expressed caution about the reliability of AI models, citing hallucination rates of "something around 3%" for OpenAI's models, up to 5% for others, and "sometimes even 27%" for models from other providers. He stated, "don't trust AI," but argued that the industry must "Embrace" it despite these trust issues. Additionally, he described a business opportunity for Deutsche Telekom, noting that the company makes "10 billion of revenues with B2B customers in Europe alone" and that small and medium enterprises are "looking desperately to get a solution for artificial intelligence" where his company can act as a "facilitator."