Entering the Era of AI Power: An Estonian View on Europe's Way - Sten Saluveer, Telia (EP 41)

🎙️ Sten Saluveer, Growth & Innovation, Telia

What decides AI trust in Europe - the size of the model, or whether people recognise themselves in the society using it? Sten Saluveer helped write Estonia's digital state agenda and now builds at Telia, and he argues Europe enters the era of AI power holding more than it thinks: a working example, and the diversity to invent its own category. For leaders deciding where their organisations stand in that game, this is a view from a country that stopped writing roadmaps and started shipping.

🎧 Episode overview Sten and Eva move from why a builder who ran innovation at Cannes chose an Estonian telco, to what an agent-driven state actually looks like when more than a hundred and twenty agentic services already run and the plan reads like scenes from a citizen's life. They sit with the uncomfortable side: a quarter in which Estonians lost around thirty million euros to cybercrime, and a security goal that paradoxically aims to keep satisfaction exactly where it is. From Cannes, Sten brings the generational fault line - leaders over forty who see adaptation as given, talents under thirty who experience AI as a threat to their work and their environment - and the question of whether Europe can turn its diversity into its own category rather than playing everyone else's game.

💡 Key themes Whether a state can make itself agent-driven and keep the citizen in control Why holding cybersecurity satisfaction at today's level counts as ambition What Europe's own category could be when it stops measuring itself in gigawatts The generational split on AI that surfaced at Cannes, and what it demands of leaders Whether a telco can become the trusted digital partner of the AI economy

👤 About the guest Sten Saluveer is an Estonian innovation strategist who has spent two decades translating between the market, the technology, and the governance layer - from heading Cannes Next at the Marché du Film to advising the Tallinn Digital Summit. He contributed to Estonia's digital state agenda, where he insisted the plan contain scenarios from ordinary life, and he recently joined Telia heading their growth and innovation initiatives. What makes his perspective matter here is the vantage point: he argues Europe's case from inside a small country where the agent-driven state is already operational.

⏱️ Chapters [00:00] Why a builder chooses a telco when the era turns [11:41] An action plan, not a roadmap - the state that ships [18:11] Standing still as ambition - the cybercrime paradox [23:15] When infrastructure has to assume it is a target [28:03] Cannes: the generation that experiences AI as a threat [38:26] Reclaiming agency - Europe's own category

🔗 Links Sten Saluveer on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stensaluveer/ Eva Simone Lihotzky on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evalihotzky/ Telia - https://www.telia.ee/era Estonia's digital state agenda - https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/initiatives/national-strategies/estonia-estonian-digital-agenda-2030 Related episode - 'Tech and Democracy with Nexus Politics' https://open.spotify.com/episode/3WVnBsaz3LfFPwn6xsX1N6