Allison Kirkby said advances in artificial intelligence could deepen significant job cuts under way at BT, as the chief executive of the UK telecoms group opened the door to a possible future spin-off of Openreach. Kirkby told the Financial Times that BT’s plans to cull more than 40,000 jobs and strip out £3bn of costs by the end of the decade “did not reflect the full potential of AI”. If AI presented new opportunities for BT to run the business with fewer resources, Kirkby said it would need to adapt to remain competitive. “Depending on what we learn from AI . . . there may be an opportunity for BT to be even smaller by the end of the decade,” she said in an interview. Since taking over in February last year, Kirkby has doubled down on her predecessor Philip Jansen’s plans announced in 2023 to cut up to 55,000 jobs by 2030. She has refocused BT on the UK, selling off its Italian business and its Irish wholesale and enterprise division. The FTSE 100 company last month carved out the group’s international business into a separate unit and is open to offers for the entire division, said a person familiar with the matter. Investors including Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal, who owns a 24.5 per cent stake, have welcomed Kirkby’s efforts to streamline the former state monopoly. BT’s shares have rallied 65 per cent since she took over as chief executive.

Full report : BT Group CEO Allison Kirkby says AI advances could deepen job cuts at BT, whose plans to cut over 40,000 jobs by 2030 “did not reflect the full potential of AI.”