Podcast

Ep 146 – Eutelsat’s AI in the sky (Dr. Mariam Kaynia)

August 3, 2026

This week’s guest

Mariam Kaynia

Chief Data & Information Officer Eutelsat

It’s hard to manage a network in space. That constraint shapes everything Dr. Mariam Kaynia thinks about as chief data and information officer at Eutelsat, Europe’s only LEO alternative to Starlink in orbit today. The company runs more than 600 satellites at 1,200 kilometers alongside a geostationary fleet parked even higher. When Eutelsat launches a satellite, the intelligence running it has to be right before it leaves the ground: self-calibrating, self-healing, and autonomous by design, not by choice.

I sat down with Mariam to unpack why satellite is becoming core connectivity instead of the backup layer, how Eutelsat federated its data platforms instead of ripping them out, and where AI decisions should—and should NOT—live inside an operator.

Listen now to hear:

Where satellite fits in telco connectivity strategy [04:03];
Why Eutelsat connected its data platforms [06:47];
The customization trap—and knowing when to say no [08:49]; and
Four guardrails for AI—including one everyone overlooks [13:25].

Links and resources

See how Eutelsat delivers a “mobile network from the sky” with higher speeds and lower latency.
Read about the next-generation sovereign constellation Eutelsat has filed for, its sovereignty and critical-infrastructure play.
Explore the TM Forum Catalyst Team Awards, where Eutelsat’s multi-orbit AI prototype won the “Tech for Good” award. Then learn about the SATCOM with an Edge – Phase III project behind that win, championed by Airbus, Bell Canada, Eutelsat, and MTN Nigeria.
Track Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO constellation in real time, the fleet that has to keep itself alive once it’s in orbit.
Learn how Eutelsat is connecting remote communities across Greenland, where population density can’t cover the cost of terrestrial networks.
Read my blog “Where do decisions live?,” which argues that decisions belong in an ontology, not at inference time, where they hallucinate at scale.
Want AI that can explain itself? Check out the Totogi Ontology, which keeps decisions in one governed model so you can show which rule fired and why.
Mariam and I got into the challenge of being working parents with big jobs. Read two of my recommendations on the topic, Anne-Marie Slaughter’s 2012 Atlantic essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” on fixing broken workplaces and Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” on the importance of personal ambition.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Guest bio

Mariam Kaynia is Eutelsat’s chief data and information officer and a member of the group’s Executive Committee. She oversees IT, data, and AI for the group. She brings extensive telecommunications expertise from VP roles at Telefónica Germany, where she led digital transformation, strategy, and data analytics, and from her time as an associate partner at McKinsey & Company. Named among the Top 50 Women in Technology in Germany, she holds a Ph.D. in Wireless Communications and Electrical Engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

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Podcast credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why did Eutelsat federate its data platforms instead of replacing them?

Eutelsat had multiple data platforms built over time. Rather than ripping them out, Chief Data and Information Officer Mariam Kaynia’s team opened up the architecture and connected them, adding shared data governance, a data catalog, and data products. This gave the company transparency and speed without a disruptive rebuild, freeing the team to focus on AI use cases that actually create value rather than on infrastructure cleanup.

2. How does Eutelsat use AI to keep satellites running on their own?

Once a satellite launches, no one can send a technician to fix it, so Eutelsat builds AI directly into orbit. Models predict and prevent collisions, plan avoidance maneuvers, recalibrate systems, and optimize fuel for both operations and eventual de-orbiting. On the ground, one agent classifies incidents and another performs root-cause analysis. This work earned Eutelsat the TM Forum Catalyst “Tech for Good” award for a multi-orbit AI prototype built with Airbus, Bell Canada, and MTN Nigeria.

3. How is Eutelsat different from Starlink?

Both operate low Earth orbit satellites, but their markets differ. Starlink focuses on mass-market, consumer home connectivity, while Eutelsat is B2B and B2G, serving telecom operators, enterprises, and governments. The company sometimes acts as a B2B2X partner that helps other providers deliver the right connectivity mix. Eutelsat delivers a “mobile network from the sky” with higher speeds and lower latency, anywhere terrestrial networks can’t reach.

4. How is satellite connectivity helping remote communities like Greenland?

In places like Greenland, low population density makes it costly for terrestrial network build outs, even though the need is real. Eutelsat partners with local telecom operators to extend connectivity to these remote communities via satellite, giving residents access that would otherwise be economically out of reach, while also helping telcos serve areas they couldn’t profitably cover alone.

5. Why does Danielle Rios say AI decisions shouldn’t live at inference time?

DR argues that when decisioning happens purely through inference, outputs become hard to audit and inconsistent—ask the same question twice and you may get different answers. Instead, her company, Totogi, captures a business’s rules and valid decisions in a governed model, then layers generative AI on top. She unpacks this in her blog, “Where do decisions live?”

6. How does the Totogi Ontology make AI decisions trustworthy?

DR argues that AI decisions become hard to audit when they’re made purely at inference time. The Totogi Ontology fixes this by capturing every business rule in one governed model, so when AI acts, companies can show regulators and customers exactly which rule fired and why.