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AI Interview: How Companies Should Approach AI

AI Interview: How Companies Should Approach AI

Defining ROIs, moving beyond the "new and shiny" and more

Peter Juel Jensen
November 16, 2023

Pioneer AI: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse.
Wow! What a week! I want to say hello to the 600 new subscribers who joined recently. Welcome to the tenth edition of the newsletter from Pioneer AI, our Nordic-focused AI investment fund. Dive in for a roundup of AI news, deals, and insights covering the Nordic region.

📚 In This Issue:

Q&A: How Companies Should Approach AI
News Roundup
Cool Tools and Companies
Nordic AI Funding News
Podcast Insights
Upcoming: Nordic AI Events You Shouldn't Miss

The AI Interview Series

Q&A: How Companies Should Approach AI

Asbjørn Boye Knudsen is the Danish Country Manager for ADC, a European consultancy group focusing on solving strategic and operational business problems with data and AI.

I spoke to him about how organisations can better integrate AI, including identifying potential opportunities and challenges, and his perspective on the Nordic market for AI solutions.

When looking at AI, how do you see the market today?

Asbjørn: There is a lot of interest – and a lot of hype. While AI has been around for a while, the new generative AI solutions make it accessible for more employees by having an intuitive interface that lowers the technological barrier, enables faster roll-outs, and can be leveraged for many use cases. For example, we built a Gen AI solution for Danish social workers that only took three days to deploy. This was done during our yearly Collective Week, where we work on Pro Bono projects for organisations with good causes who can benefit from AI but lack the financial resources.

What challenges can companies encounter when looking to integrate AI?

Asbjørn: Regulatory risks, data protection issues, siloed data, outdated systems, and organisational complexities spring to mind. This is especially the case for larger, more complex companies.

Another significant challenge can be that decision-makers do not clearly understand AI's potential and what it takes to realise its benefits. In general, we see widespread recognition by decision-makers of the importance of AI but not always a good sense of the current data maturity of their organisations. This can cause organisational frustration when they try to realise their decision-makers’ visions without having the conditions for success.

So, are companies, in some ways, overly excited about AI?

Asbjørn: That is not my impression. A potential issue can be that it is natural to become overly focused on AI's new and shiny aspects. For many companies, there are likely greater benefits associated with a structured, long-term approach focusing on building the right capabilities and infrastructure in the organisation rather than looking solely at what Chat GPT-like solutions can do.

Similarly, there is a risk of seeing AI as the solution to all challenges and opportunities

With that in mind, what is your advice to companies regarding AI integration?

Asbjørn: Encourage a problem-oriented approach and focus on how new solutions can add business value. Additionally, be open-minded regarding what the best solution may be. Start experimenting quickly and consider establishing sandbox environments to initiate the process. Furthermore, develop a strategy for building internal capabilities and effectively leveraging partners and vendors. Ensure that AI holds C-level attention and buy-in. Considering the speed of AI development, develop modular approaches to facilitate easy upgrades or exchanges of specific solution parts as the field continually advances.

Many businesses need help to define AI’s business value. What would be your advice?

Asbjørn: Remember that ROI can be measured and counted in different ways. Identify the specific returns you are targeting and understand how to measure the value of foundational work that benefits mutual use cases. For example, at ADC, we work with pharma companies, and in that space, the ROI for AI is typically faster discovery speeds for new medicines rather than FTE savings.

In light of your advice and experience, how do you see the Nordic market for AI solutions and AI companies?

Asbjørn: It is strong. We are digitally mature societies and open to new technologies. This enables companies and organisations to grasp the opportunities of AI fairly quickly. Many companies and organisations also seem clear on using AI to primarily free professionals from repetitive, time-consuming tasks to focus on value-added activities and innovation.

Any advice for AI companies and entrepreneurs?

Asbjørn: For AI companies and their customers, AI is an opportunity to reimagine work processes and explore scalable solutions. For example, my brother has a cybersecurity SaaS company. One of their offerings is training videos. AI enables them to provide the same video in multiple languages, allowing them to expand into new markets rapidly.

However, AI can rarely be your core business idea or differentiator for them or many others. It starts with the business idea and the problem you are solving for the client, and then you apply the newest technologies like AI to expedite the process or deliver a better product. Similarly, AI start-ups should consider what distinguishes them from their competitors now and in the future. It will rarely be a self-developed AI model but rather a combination of proprietary data, integrating different technologies, client loyalty, and the overall business model.

🎙Nordic News Roundup

Law firms that do not embrace AI “will soon become irrelevant.” [NO] (Advokatbladet)
This Swedish start-up is revolutionising tax with AI. [SE] (Cision)
This professor wants to use AI to save lives. [DK] (TV Syd)
How beer festival handed marketing responsibilities to AI. [NO] (Kampanje)
Do you want AI to “just” increase productivity - or be a game changer? [SE] (Computer Sweden)
AI tricks viewers and host on live TV by writing and starring in a segment. [DK] (TV MidtVest)
Norwegian Wealth Fund is using AI to deploy capital. (Reuters)
Here is how AI could change future exams. [NO] (Khrono)
Norwegian take on the launch of GPT-4-Turbo. [NO] (IT Avisen)
European companies are investing heavily in Open AI challenger. [SE] (Computer Sweden)

🛠️ Cool Tools & Companies

Spacept from Sweden uses AI-powered satellite image analysis to identify infrastructure risks.
Capturi from Denmark provides AI-powered customer interaction solutions.
Zyfra from Finland increases production efficiency through its AI and IIoT platform.
Earth Science Analytics from Norway unlocks the potential of data for energy companies through machine learning and AI.

Do you know cool tools or companies I should feature in the newsletter? Let me know!

🚀AI Funding News

Select Nordic AI companies that have raised funds in recent months:

RiACT from Denmark
Capalo AI from Finland
Saidot from Finland
QA.Tech from Sweden
Corti from Denmark
Skyqraft from Sweden
Strise from Norway
Tailwind Biotech from Denmark
Ellie AI from Finland

Congratulations to all of the founders and teams!

Are there other Nordic companies that should be on this list? Let me know!

🎧 Listen To

AI För Ledera [SE]- How these six dimensions help SMEs integrate and evolve AI solutions.
Prompt [DK] - A Danish look at the crazy last ten days in the world of AI.
E24-podden [NO] - Norway’s minister for digitisation on why the country needs to be at the forefront of embracing AI.

📅 Training, Meetups & Conferences

Conferences

20-21 November: AI Sweden at Internetdagarna 2023: Three seminars on AI in Sweden as part of Internetdagarna. [Online]
22 November: Public Data and AI: Explore the connections between public data and AI. [Copenhagen, Denmark]
November 30 - December 1: Nordic AI Summit: Nordic Conference on AI. [Oslo, Norway]
4-7 December: Human-Agent Interaction 2023: The premier interdisciplinary venue for discussing and disseminating state-of-the-art research and results. [Gothenburg, Sweden]
7 December: AI Enhanced Mobility: Presentations on results of feasibility studies. [Gothenburg, Sweden/Online]
February 1-2 (2024): Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI: AI research and knowledge-sharing conference. [Nyborg, Denmark]
14 March (2024): Applied AI Nordics: Make AI practical and understandable and inspire how to get value from AI in business. [Copenhagen, Denmark]
14 March (2024): AI-Con 2024: AI in the context of content and marketing. [Oslo, Norway]
17-18 April (2024): AI+: Get the latest updates from the world of artificial intelligence. [Halden, Norway]
24-25 April (2024): Data Innovation Summit: One of the most influential Nordic events on data, analytics and AI. [Stockholm, Sweden]