Safety, security and satellite were three prominent and popular topics, with a surprising dose of optimism offered over Europe’s future competitiveness
Keynote 11: Disinformation, Trust and Security
Following extensive discussion around the macroeconomic implications of AI on Day 2, the third day of MWC kicked off with a conversation around the changing trust and safety landscape for digital services in the age of AI. Ross Frenett (CEO and Founder, Moonshot) opened the event by laying out the ways in which technology has accelerated and amplified the spread of misinformation, harassment and similar harms, arguing that while the harms are not necessarily new, new trends enabled by digital services require stronger responses. His talk featured a startling display of the vast range of conspiracy theories his firm has tracked – including whether King Charles is a vampire and if Paul McCartney died in 1966 – and referenced the harmful speech targeted towards a number of operators in attendance, including BT, Vodafone, Verizon and Orange. Sachin Duggal (Founder and Chief Wizard, Builder.ai) discussed how digital services, now including AI, have shifted markers of trustworthy information from the credibility of institutions and experts to simply the volume of engagement content receives. To address these issues, both speakers advocated stricter regulation but also renewed efforts from industry to support vulnerable consumers. Frenett offered a stark assessment that if sensible regulation kills a business model, that business model shouldn’t have existed in the first place. He also urged governments and industry to invest in continued “prebunking” initiatives (proactive, educational outreach on common topics of misinformation), comparing the work to re-upping a flu jab regularly.
Taking a broader approach to creating a “better internet”, Marieke Snoep (Chief, Consumer Market and Member of the Board, KPN) discussed the work KPN has done to advance safer online spaces and the broader role operators can take in supporting their customers’ ability to benefit from technology. While she acknowledged that operators can’t control the content that travels on their networks, they’re not blind to the harm that is occurring and can contribute meaningfully to a debate often dominated by tech firms and policymakers. KPN’s own efforts to improve online experiences span safety, sustainability, equity and inclusivity, and began with the launch of a viral messaging campaign about online shaming targeting Gen Z consumers. Snoep credited the success of the campaign to KPN’s intentional work to better understand the negative online experiences of their customers, which ultimately led to the creation of an original song and music video that’s been adopted in schools, referenced by policymakers in debates around the criminal prosecution of online shaming and translated into English for launch in the UK as well.
GSMA SEC CON 2025 – Confronting fraud: Securing a safer future
A GSMA-led security summit opened by its outgoing Director General, Mats Granryd, explored the universal challenge of scams and what key industries – namely telecoms, tech and financial services – are doing unilaterally and collectively to address the problem. Both Rashim Kapoor (EVP, Networks, Bharti Airtel) and Irish Salandanan-Almeida (Chief Privacy Officer, Globe Telecom) outlined the huge economic impact of scams, which are becoming more sophisticated and aggressive as fraudsters increasingly adopt AI to perpetrate their crimes. While Kapoor noted the concerted action the Indian telecoms industry was taking to tackle potentially fraudulent spoofing of numbers in real time, Salandanan-Almeida was eager to highlight the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Globe Telecom and the Bankers Association in the Philippines and the cross-sector collaboration that has enabled. She added that the Government was an important facilitator of the MoU by confirming exemptions under national privacy legislation for data sharing between the two industries in the specific context of tackling scams. Eugene Liderman (Director of Product for Android Security & Privacy, Google) saw regulation generally as providing a useful backstop, but sounded caution as to the scope for unintended consequences. Specifically, Liderman pointed to fraudsters leveraging cookie consent banners required by the GDPR and building them into scam messages to make them appear more genuine to end users. Although panellists appeared to see scams as primarily an industry problem to solve, there was a recognition of the value of a multi-stakeholder approach that includes policymakers, with Liderman identifying recent initiatives in Singapore as good examples of how that has been applied in practice.
Keynote 12: Future of Work and Economic Growth
As AI continued to dominate discussions, Keynote 12 saw industry leaders discuss how the technology will impact the future of work and how the EU can improve its economic growth. Euan Blair (CEO and Founder, Multiverse) kicked off the session by advocating for a complete overhaul of how people work using AI, emphasising that the adoption of AI in the workplace needs to be ubiquitous and not only in a select few areas. Blair was clear that the future of work would rely on reskilling the workforce to utilise AI effectively in their daily tasks, even going as far as saying that AI adoption would be “the most robust change to reskilling since the industrial revolution”. Blair noted that his vision for an upskilled AI workforce was reliant on first developing better data literacy. He suggested that training did not need to come from academic settings and was actually more effective in practice when learnt on-the-job, arguing that it would be these changes which would eventually end the productivity crisis.
The following panel discussion on the future of economic growth in Europe was aligned on the core issues faced by the bloc but was generally more optimistic than other similar discussions held in recent months. Jordi Romero (CEO, Factorial) discussed his excitement about the talent that exists in Europe, which he explained comes from the diversity and depth of culture that the EU has across its Member States. Yoram Wijngaarde (CEO, Dealroom.co) echoed this sentiment, arguing against the need for Europe to develop its own Silicon Valley and promoting the opportunities that could arise from the already dense ecosystem of the EU. Robert Lacher (Founding Partner, Visionaries Club) agreed but also encouraged entrepreneurs and new businesses to think globally to attract growth capital, rather than limiting themselves to European investors. The panellists agreed that one of the key barriers to economic growth in Europe is that existing large firms and successful entrepreneurs have been hesitant to invest capital into new projects and start-ups, picking up on a common assessment from days prior. Lacher highlighted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek as an example of the sort of smart European investor start-ups should be seeking support from.
The panel’s conversation briefly turned to regulation, and Renate Nikolay (Deputy Director-General, DG CONNECT) promoted the EC’s new approach that will value innovation and investment as highly as regulation. She repeated the key messages heard from various EC officials since the introduction of the new Commission: regulation needs simplification, competitiveness needs to be boosted and the EU single market must be strengthened. Nikolay said that Europe had been “sleepwalking” in the past few decades compared to the US and China, arguing that now was the time to catch up. Lacher agreed and asked that governments and regulators go into “founder mode” to boost economic growth. To the agreement of the rest of the panel, Nikolay also raised the point that the talent, capital and infrastructure for growth all exist in Europe, but the effective application of these is what is missing.
Managing the Power Surge: Can AI and Nuclear Energy Help Solve Data Center Energy Demands?
The prominence of AI on the MWC25 agenda carried through Day 3 with a panel discussion on the role of the technology in meeting the rising energy demands of data centres and other digital infrastructure. Afnan Ahmed (Director, Network Strategy & Architecture, Telenor) stated that AI was already in use across Telenor’s footprint and was upbeat about the potential energy efficiency impact for operators when it is deployed at scale across thousands of sites. Antonia Gawel (Global Director, Sustainability & Partnerships, Google) stated that data centres account for just 0.1-0.2% of the overall ICT sector’s carbon emissions but managing growth of that figure requires Google and other large tech companies to use a portfolio of energy options, such as wind, solar and geothermal. This approach could also involve small modular reactors (SMRs), an emerging technology in which Google is looking to drive investment. In contrast, Ahmed did not see nuclear as an option for Telenor in the short to medium term, predicting that no SMRs would be used in its network before 2030. Citing safety and environmental risks around nuclear technology, Ahmed outlined the need for appropriate regulatory frameworks, which do not exist in many countries today, including Telenor’s home market of Norway.
Elsewhere around the conference on Day 3
Throughout the halls, activity notably quieted down and a number of keynotes and other events were sparsely attended. That did not hold true, however, for the Satellite and NTN Summit hosted by the GSMA. The event was massively oversubscribed, with a line of hopeful attendees wrapping around the outside of the theatre – an apt symbol of the enthusiasm for the continued advancement of satellite connectivity seen during the week, particularly in the context of direct-to-device (D2D) services.
In a conversation late on Day 2 about youth mental health and the impacts of social media, speakers offered a relatively uncompromising assessment of how they believe the effort to ban children from social media is misguided. Andrew Przybylski (Professor of Human Behaviour and Technology, University of Oxford) directly contradicted the popular narrative around digital services negatively effecting young people’s mental health, stating repeatedly that the bulk of the scientific research conducted in the past years does not support any such conclusion. He argued, however, that that fact does not mean platforms shouldn’t be held to a higher standard, pointing to the level of scrutiny paid to safety claims in other key industries such as pharmaceuticals. Perhaps given her work in leading industry collaboration around child safety issues, Nina Vollmer (Director Children's Rights and Sustainability. Global Child Forum) was more skeptical of the role of regulation in protecting children online, suggesting instead that industry is better positioned to lead on innovative approaches to improved safety.
