By Dimitri Rhodes and Hugo Lhomedet

(Reuters) -French call centre and office services group TP, formerly known as Teleperformance, on Wednesday announced new medium term targets including plans to return 1.5 billion euros to shareholders by 2028.

The company, which provides decentralised customer service and moderation solutions, is betting on AI-powered solutions to improve its products and counter the erosion of traditional outsourcing services by artificial intelligence.

It predicted in 2023 that up to a third of its activities would be automated within the next three years.

"1.5 billion could be returned to shareholders either through dividends, either through share buybacks," finance chief Olivier Rigaudy said on a call with reporters.

TP said it expects like-for-like sales growth of between 4% and 6%, at constant exchange rates, in 2028. It is also targeting a recurring earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin of 15.5% in 2028.

The company aims to generate 3 billion euros ($3.45 billion) in free cash flow over the 2026-2028 period, of which 20%, roughly 600 million euros, will be used for acquisitions throughout this period, the CFO added.

TP also announced on Wednesday the launch of a proprietary AI orchestration platform, TP.ai FAB, to integrate artificial intelligence, human expertise, and automation. That will be supported by the acquisition of Agents Only, an AI-enabled crowdsourcing platform, it said.

The outsourcing firm, which employs more than 410,000 people worldwide, announced in November it was cutting 600 jobs amid a cost-cutting plan aimed at reducing a debt that nearly doubled in 2023 following its Majorel consolidation.

The group previously said it sees like-for-like sales growth of 3% to 5% and EBITDA margin increase of up to 10 basis points in 2025.

($1 = 0.8688 euros)

(Reporting by Dimitri Rhodes and Hugo Lhomedet in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)