Deutsche Telekom Bets on AI Call Agents, Satellite IoT and Basketball Rights as Bernstein Turns Cautious
Published on 09/26/2026 at 08:01 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Deutsche Telekom is betting that customers would rather talk to a machine than punch their way through a phone menu. At the HumanX specialist conference in Amsterdam on Saturday, the Bonn-based carrier laid out plans to push AI voice agents across its European national companies, gradually retiring the classic touch-tone selection menus that have long greeted callers.
The digital assistants are already handling conversations in parts of the group's ten European markets, according to Kartik Sheth, who heads Deutsche Telekom's AI efforts. They operate around the clock and cover between 40 and 60 languages. More country units are slated to follow in the coming months, with the company relying on modular intermediate layers and adapters to slot the technology into different network infrastructures. A service for real-time translation of calls is also due this year, provided at least one participant is on the group's own network.
The systems ramp up quickly once deployed. Sheth said new installations already manage 20% of calls in their first week, a figure that climbs to 40% after two months. Over the next one to two years, the group is targeting a share above 80% — a level the company itself describes as technically demanding.
Infrastructure Push Meets Political Headwinds
Software is only half the story. A draft from Germany's federal transport ministry envisions roughly 20,000 radio masts along the country's rail corridors, with the government financing the supporting structures. Mobile operators would then equip the sites with their own 5G gear. The digital rail radio standard FRMCS is to be built out on this basis by 2035, while talks continue over how operators will share the follow-on costs.
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The company also drew a different kind of attention on Friday, when the advocacy group Digitalcourage handed it a negative award. The organization issued the reprimand preemptively, pointing to speculation about a tie-up with T-Mobile US. A company spokesperson dismissed reports of a merger as unconfirmed rumors, adding that the group would neither accept nor comment on the distinction.
Sports Rights, Smaller Stores and a Satellite Bet
On the media side, Deutsche Telekom has secured exclusive rights to the Basketball Champions League for its MagentaSport platform. Starting with the 2026/27 season on October 6, the broadcaster will show every game involving German participants, plus all matchups from the quarterfinals onward, on an exclusive basis. Financial terms were not disclosed.
That deal forms part of a broader series of operational moves aimed at widening the group's offering for consumers and business partners. On Thursday, management announced plans to roll out 50 flexible, smaller retail formats across Germany in 2027, tying in-person service more tightly to its digital support structures in response to shifting shopping and advice habits. Days earlier, the carrier completed technical integration and a global roaming agreement with Iridium, making the partner's low-earth-orbit satellite network commercially available to Telekom IoT customers equipped with compatible narrowband devices — enabling uninterrupted data transmission well beyond conventional mobile coverage.
Oktoberfest Data Surge and a Downgrade
Existing capacity is already being tested. On Monday, the company reported 57.7 terabytes of data traffic on the Oktoberfest grounds during the festival's opening weekend, an 18% increase over the same period a year earlier, with more than half of that volume carried over 5G.
Even so, caution is creeping into some analyst notes. According to media reports, Bernstein downgraded Deutsche Telekom shares yesterday from "Outperform" to "Market-Perform," while cutting its price target sharply from EUR 37 to EUR 28.10.
The stock took the revision largely in stride. The paper closed Friday's Xetra session at EUR 27.09, a modest gain of 0.5% on the day, giving the DAX heavyweight a market capitalization of EUR 128.32 billion.
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