Telia will cut about 100 jobs in Estonia, and its local chief points to AI

Telia Company announced on 12 October that it intends to cut about 900 positions across the group and save SEK 1 billion a year. The group counted about 14,100 positions on 1 October. In Estonia the plan covers about 100 of roughly 1,400 positions, around one in fourteen. Telia expects to finish by 31 December, subject to union negotiations, and Telia Eesti has started consultations with Töötukassa, the unemployment insurance fund.

The group release itself does not mention AI. It talks about a simpler and faster company, moving decisions to the country units and cutting complexity. The AI link comes from Estonia. ERR reported that the company uses more and more AI, digitalisation and automation, and Telia Eesti chief executive Andre Visse told Aktuaalne kaamera that a voice bot and a chatbot already serve a large part of the customer base. He said Telia is considering, and already doing, the delegation of some routine work to AI, including internal processes.

Three operators, three answers

ERR also asked Telia’s two competitors. Tele2 Eesti’s chief executive said the company cut 20% of its staff over 2024 and 2025, that AI already works in its customer service, and that bigger changes come next year as AI takes a larger role there. He added that the human side has to stay. Elisa declined an on-camera comment and said in writing that it is a growing company and sees no need today to reduce staff because of AI.

So the same technology, in the same small market, leads to three different staffing decisions. AI does not decide headcount on its own. Cost pressure, growth and management choices do, and AI changes which tasks still need a person. Visse framed the cuts in those terms: costs keep rising, that could start to eat into investment, and a more efficient organisation should ease the pressure on prices.

Customer service goes first

Both Telia and Tele2 name customer service as the place where AI already does real work. That matches what we see in Estonian companies of every size: answering repeat questions, sorting incoming requests and drafting replies are the first tasks a chatbot or voice bot takes over. The people who handled those tasks either move to harder cases or, as at Telia, the role disappears. A company that does not decide which of the two it wants will end up with the second by default.

What an Estonian company should do on Monday

• ✳List the routine tasks in your customer service and back office, and mark which ones a bot or assistant could already handle. Do this before a vendor or a budget meeting does it for you
• ✳For every task you automate, write down what the person who did it will do next. Harder customer cases, quality checks of bot answers and fixing the knowledge base are all real jobs
• ✳Keep a clear route from the bot to a human, and check every week which questions the bot gets wrong. Tele2’s chief executive made the same point: the human side has to stay
• ✳Train the people who stay to work with the tools. The company that reskills its customer service team keeps the people who know its customers best
• ✳Tell your staff early and plainly what AI will change in their work. Telia has to run consultations with Töötukassa. Your team deserves the same honesty before any decision is made

Telia will give more financial detail with its third-quarter report on 22 October. Most Estonian companies will not face a 100-job decision, but every one of them faces the question Telia, Tele2 and Elisa each answered differently: when AI takes over a task, what happens to the person who did it?