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Digital Transformation & AI for Humans
Welcome to 'Digital Transformation & AI for Humans' with Emi.
In this podcast, we delve into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation, and most importantly, the human spirit.
Each episode features visionary leaders from different countries who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch—nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence, soft skills, and building resilient teams.
Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes.
Visit https://digitaltransformation4humans.com/ for more information.
Digital Transformation & AI for Humans
AI-Driven Business Expansion: Reinventing Growth through Innovation & Intrapreneurship
Today, AI is no longer just a buzzword - it’s the backbone of how modern businesses expand, innovate, and scale with purpose.
In this episode of Digital Transformation and AI for Humans, we dive deep into the future of AI-driven growth, enterprise innovation, and intrapreneurial leadership.
I’m joined by my amazing guest, Albert Bengtson from Stockholm, Sweden - ex senior leader at Apple, book author, co-author of the 4C model.
As an entrepreneur, Albert founded several companies, one of which won Elon Musk’s annual Developer Challenge award while still at PayPal. For more than a decade, he worked as an enterprise evangelist at a large multinational corporation, coaching and connecting intrapreneurial talent to drive purpose and impact in retail, banking, and logistics.
Together, we explore the frameworks, mindsets, and scalable strategies that unlock AI’s full potential — not just for tech teams, but for business leaders, governments, and innovation hubs ready to shape the future.
🔑 Key Topics Covered in This Episode
✅ How AI is Fundamentally Reshaping Business Expansion
✅ Innovation Insights from Apple
✅ The Swedish Government’s AI Feasibility Report
✅ Government & Private Sector Collaboration in AI
✅ The Rise of AI-Powered Innovation Hubs
✅ The 4C’s Model of Intrapreneurial Capital
✅ Scaling AI Beyond the Pilot Stage
✅ Emerging AI trends that business leaders need to monitor and prepare for now
✅ Building a Competitive Edge Through AI
🔗 Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertbengtson/
📈 SIME Conference: https://www.sime.nu/
📕 Book "Principles of Intrapreneurial Capital": https://www.adlibris.com/se/e-bok/principles-of-intrapreneurial-capital-9789198838114
About the host, Emi Olausson Fourounjieva
With over 20 years in IT, digital transformation, business growth & leadership, Emi specializes in turning challenges into opportunities for business expansion and personal well-being.
Her contributions have shaped success stories across the corporations and individuals, from driving digital growth, managing resources and leading teams in big companies to empowering leaders to unlock their inner power and succeed in this era of transformation.
📚 Get your AI Leadership Compass: Unlocking Business Growth & Innovation 🧭 The Definitive Guide for Leaders & Business Owners to Adapt & Thrive in the Age of AI & Digital Transformation: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNBJ92RP
📆 Book a free Strategy Call with Emi
🔗 Connect with Emi Olausson Fourounjieva on LinkedIn
🌏 Learn more: https://digitaltransformation4humans.com/
📧 Subscribe to the newsletter on LinkedIn: Transformation for Leaders
🔔 Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes
Hello and welcome to Digital Transformation and AI for Humans with your host, amy. In this podcast, we delve into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation and, most importantly, the human spirit. Each episode features visionary leaders who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence and building resilient teams. I'm excited to dive into AI-driven business expansion. Today, we will talk about reinventing growth through innovation and entrepreneurship, together with my amazing guest, albert Bengtsson, from Stockholm, sweden, ex-senior leader at Apple book author, co-author of the 4C model. As an entrepreneur, albert founded several companies, one of which won Elon Musk's annual Developer Challenge Award. While still at PayPal, for more than a decade, he worked as an enterprise evangelist at a large multinational corporation, coaching and connecting entrepreneurial talent to drive purpose and impact in retail, banking and logistics. Welcome, albert, it's truly a pleasure to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, emi, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Let's start the conversation and transform not just our technologies but our ways of thinking and leading. If you are interested in connecting or collaborating, you can find more information in the description below. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes. I would also love to invite you to get your copy of AI Leadership Compass Unlocking Business Growth and Innovation the Definitive Guide for Leaders and Business Owners to Adapt and Thrive in definitive guide for leaders and business owners to adapt and thrive in the age of AI and digital transformation. You can find the Amazon link in the description. Albert, to start with, I would love to hear more about yourself, about your journey, about what you are passionate about innovation, artificial intelligence, latest technologies and the human role in all that. So please tell me more.
Speaker 2:Thank you for opening like that. Already in the mid-90s I fell extremely in love with what the internet is going to do for us from a human point of view, but especially the way that we work. I mean, when I grew up, I grew up in Sweden, in a small city, actually two kilometers on a dust road straight into the woods. So growing up there my mother was a nurse and my father lived in Venezuela. Biological father lived in Venezuela, biological father lived in Venezuela. So the connection between Sweden and Venezuela back then was done through telephony, right, you had to lift up, pick up the phone and call Back. Then one minute of calling actually to pay for one minute. My mother had to work half an hour as a nurse to finance that minute.
Speaker 2:And when internet came, when connection became absolutely driven towards non-cost at all, I was so excited to understand how the world is going to connect. So I did my master's thesis in economy, trying to understand how this was going to happen with the internet when it comes into the mobile. So this was in the year in 1999, slash 2000. And I was trying to describe how the world is going to act to apps. So doing that, it's been trying to understand how a login web page back then we didn't call it communities but having that kind of technology in your mobile phone in a more privileged way, where you are anywhere, how is that going to change the way that we work?
Speaker 2:And that is what I would say, the fundamentals for AI, right? I mean, we started to build up all the things that AI has been trained on. Without the internet, ai wouldn't be there, right? So for me, this is just a pleasure to see how the internet is constantly renewing itself and building new dialects. I'm quite interested also in the VR slash, ar slash, mixed reality space and what's going to happen there in the near future, and especially when they cross, alternate between each other, it's actually super, super interesting. So, yeah, that's a little bit background from my point of view, why I think internet is so interesting.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing your story and telling a little bit more about your childhood and about your passions. It sounds really inspiring, and I agree. All those technologies they are opening up for a new reality, for the new way of being and navigating, and all we can do is make sure that we're creating something amazing and we are doing it together. So this conversation is really timely, Albert. Today, artificial intelligence isn't just a trend. It is fundamentally reshaping how businesses expand and innovate as organizations adapt. What are the most profound ways AI is driving business growth? What key trends should leaders be prioritizing?
Speaker 2:Running headfirst into internet once again. 25 years ago, I thought that the large companies would just open their mind and say, oh my God, this is going to change everything. Let's be fast and implement this, because we really need it. We need to be in the forefront. Sweden being more of an industrial nation than an innovation nation, we have had a pace that has been slower. I usually talk about this.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows about Moore's law, right, it's 18 months. So if you are in the internet business, 18 months is the standard on doubling the speed of the semiconductors or getting the price down for such a thing. When it comes to industry old industry this has been 20, 30, 40, 50 years, while things double their speed. So in that kind of sense, taking decisions that charge 18 months is not a big problem, it's not a hurdle being in the internet space. That is too much time, because the reality will look totally different 18 months from now, because the possibilities are totally different.
Speaker 2:Coming back to AI, the speed there is three to four months. So the Moore's law is extremely much more rapid and it's exponential, of course, right, so in those 18 months it's 40 times better than it is so taking a decision waiting 18 months on an AI kind of perspective, it's 40 times better. And we don't even understand how 40 times better, how that would look like. So, when it comes to AI and large companies, it's extremely important that you iterate and you start testing and you get yourself a task team that's really trying not only to implement co-pilot and these kind of standards, but also looking how could we change all the ways that we do our business and do it smarter, and try to expand and play an entrepreneurial kind of mind game and say what if we export to all countries in the world much faster? How can we do this? What new kind of products do we need? How can we, and so on. So start dreaming.
Speaker 1:It's amazing because exactly yesterday I recorded an interview about dreaming big with AI and what if was the crucial question there, so I couldn't agree more with you and it is like if you are reading my mind, so amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think I feel a little bit sorry for the industrial companies because they haven't been allowed to dream. There are a haven't been allowed to dream. There are a few that are allowed to dream and have auditions. In Sweden we have IKEA as an example. They dream all the time and they never stop and they are really constantly innovating and trying to look to do that in a better way. So I think that is the mission, that is one of my missions here in Sweden to help help mid-size and large enterprise to start dreaming again and then see where they could go.
Speaker 1:Amazing Albert, you held a leadership role at Apple, a company synonymous with innovation. What lessons did you take away from Apple's approach to innovation, and how can businesses today apply those principles to AI-driven growth?
Speaker 2:So I'm not talking specifically about Apple and not specific clients, but I learned that innovation in large companies is really hard, even if you have a strong brand behind you to try to support it. It grants you access to top management and when you come to top management and you show innovation or a new ecosystem or what you want to do, they usually get very excited and they do understand it and they say, oh, we should definitely do this. And then you go down to the people on the factory floor and they understand, because they own the pain that is created by the lack of this innovation. It's even mostly seen nurses and people in health care. That's extremely important. There are so few tools, intelligent tools that has been put in the hands of nurses and stuff which could save so many minutes a week that it is just ridiculous. But once again, these two they do understand each other.
Speaker 2:And then you have the middle management or the organization. This is usually called the frozen lasagna. When you put a frozen lasagna into the microwave it gets hot on the top and hot in the bottom, but in the middle it's totally frozen and this means that things do not scale and psychological safety for innovators and really trying to help these things happening is a super large challenge. Because that's what you need. You need the whole organization and the culture to keep on and continuously be eager to do this, moving forward.
Speaker 2:Innovation is a journey. Innovation is not finding an idea. Innovation is a journey where you have organizational support, where you have a culture, where you collaborate inside of teams with other teams and teams outside of your company, and you need also to have ambidextrous leadership. With that I mean that you need to have for the structured hierarchy in the large companies, you need to have one certain kind of very safe and secure leadership, but also you need to have a different leadership with the creators and the people that have the ideas and and move fast, because they want to iterate and they need to be able to change the direction each second or each minute or each hour at least, if they find that they are on the wrong path or the path is not aligned with with certain other standards or whatever.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and it does make sense. As you mentioned, it's speeded up so incredibly much that we can't even embrace the level of expansion with our brain. And then on top of that, if there is not enough flexibility, then of course it might create additional problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now, if you go back to sports, running an ultra marathon, you have to have a certain kind of training, and if you're running 100 meters, you're going to have a different kind of training. It's very easy to see that there are different physics and it's it's the same here. I mean, you need the, the ultra marathon, because that is where your revenues are today, and you need your revenues to be able to invest in the fast sprint where you try to iterate faster and implement, to see what is working for us, so to say.
Speaker 1:Totally Brilliant comparison, actually, so thank you for bringing it up. You contributed to the AI feasibility report for the Swedish government. What were the most surprising or impactful findings, and how do they shape AI adoption for business today and tomorrow?
Speaker 2:There are several reports. I'm in the XR Sweden report when it comes to trying to understand how the new technology I call it visual AI, how that is going to form TweetIn, and we are in the middle of doing this. So I'm not finished yet, but one of the interesting parts that we found is, of course, we want to have an online community where you could share ideas, use cases, knowledge and such. We want to have a conference yearly use cases, knowledge and such. We want to have a conference yearly. But one of the things that we looked into that was how do we, going back to the lasagna, how do we get the middle of the lasagna warm and tasty? And we saw that it's technology, even though I mean you and me we talk about this every day and several times each day, and for us it feels like we are so through it and then everybody understands it Talking to a lot of other companies that have revenues not too near internet and media and all this. Their reality is different.
Speaker 2:So we were thinking about how can we get because that's where the technology needs to anchor, I call it the real Swedish companies out there, outside of the large cities, where you have companies? We have 11,000 companies in mid-size and large right in Sweden Sweden being a very, very small, once again, country 10 million inhabitants so we were looking into how could we approach them. And they're not sure. They're not going to start buying consultancy, because consultancy you do that when you have a problem that you know about and you actually want to fix something. Innovation is not something that you want to fix, it's more kind of a learning steep. So how can we teach innovation to mid-sized, large companies in Sweden? So what we've been thinking about is to actually get a mobile innovation studio to act in Sweden for five years. So that is what we are sketching on right now and that would mean, together with some other organizations, we go out to a small city or a mid-sized city in Sweden, we get the 100 mid-sized and largest companies into the conference center and we serve them breakfast to lunch and we talk innovation with them for four and a half hours and the greatest leaders of industrial age process them and welcome them into the family.
Speaker 2:We need to do this for Sweden, we need to do this for Europe and, having that four and a half hours, we can teach them all about AI and visual AI, how this is going to look in the future? How do you look into governance around this, how can you actually make this happen and what kind of tools do you need? Then we give that person a really big goodie bag going back to their office it's a kind of a workshop, so they line up the top management and they go through the workshop with them, in which they go and see that they need help to do this, and from there we have different kinds of products that they could start investing in to get more knowledge, to actually get hands-on, having innovation partners to come to their place and do everything from inventory to identification and so on. This, I think, could really get the Swedish innovation climate to hot up outside of the city, heart of Stockholm, gothenburg and Malmö.
Speaker 1:This sounds really so futuristic and it is so needed today because, as you mentioned, there is so much more in Stockholm and Gothenburg and Malmo, but outside there are so many companies which would love to participate in these type of initiatives, to participate in these type of initiatives and they really need it because, actually, even despite the fact that Sweden is not such a big country, but the technological level of advancement and the level of this technological futuristic presence on the world market is really significant. Presence on the world market is really significant. So it is interesting to see how this is going to develop and cool that you are leading one of those initiatives as well. Amazing. What are the most effective ways for governments and private sector leaders to collaborate in accelerating responsible AI-driven innovation? Can you share examples of successful partnerships?
Speaker 2:Well, in Sweden we have an organization called Vinnova, which is the governmental investment for innovation fund. They're doing many, many great examples in investing in both academia but also in things projects happening, so to say. One of the interesting we have an AI commission that was written for the Swedish government. In there it said that it's extremely important that Sweden take responsibility in this right now and start investing, because it used to be in the forefront when it came to infrastructure, in very early stage. Once again, sweden being an industrial nation, we understood infrastructure and we were really early and doing really great investments.
Speaker 2:We had something called home pc, which was a support for households to get their first computer. So it was a government-subsidized buy that you could do. So you get your tax money back if you bought a computer, and this was mid-90s or something like that. This made Sweden really provocative and it brought a lot of innovation powers to Sweden. We need something similar. Ai is doing great, I think, on a personal level inside of Sweden. We need something similar.
Speaker 2:Ai is doing great, I think, on a personal level inside of Sweden, but when it comes to organizational structure, we are lagging behind and Europe having very restricted view on data with large penalties and such, it's extremely hard to understand and see how we can compete with the rest of the world on this. I think it's up to Sweden and it needs to be a governmental kind of responsible way of doing this. I say both on a policy kind of level and most definitely also subsidizing and helping small companies or midsize companies to get started. It's even more important than getting the large or the Fortune 500s to get started, because they're going to follow but it's going to take time and it takes a lot of time because their problem is not the technology, it's the governance and setting the governance structure, rather than it is to start to having the brains of understanding what could be done with the technology.
Speaker 1:You are so right about this and I would love to talk a little bit more about those innovation hubs, because they can really change the situation, and I agree that it's difficult for Europe to be so restricted and limited compared to China, US and some other areas where there are not so many limitations. But at the same time, we have to do something and we have to move forward. We can't just fall behind. So innovation hubs are becoming key accelerators for AI during transformation. But according to you, what are the fundamental differences between traditional innovation hubs and AI-powered ones? Can you share examples of how the modern innovation hubs are shaping industries?
Speaker 2:So I'm sitting in an innovation house called Epicenter. Epicenter is a big. It's 20% startups, 40% scale-ups and 40% incumbent large companies that want to innovate faster. So it's a melting pot, and what we need is more melting pots rather than having academic startup hubs, because the problem is not starting companies Sounds really obnoxious, maybe, but it's not the way that I mean it. I mean starting something and having the first few miles working an idea. It's not the hardest part. Miles working an idea it's not the hardest part. The hardest part is to actually get your first three customers that are really dedicated and paid what they should be paying for it for the service. When that happens, you're much more in a scale-up kind of environment and scale-ups have a totally different need than a startup does. So, from my point of view, if I would be the government, I would really try to see how do we support the scale-up community and how can we help them get customers. That is a lot about when it comes to the 4C model, the first stage.
Speaker 2:How do people meet? We need to have more meeting places. We need to have more meetups. We need to have more conferences. We need to have large companies inviting scale-ups to come talk to their management board to explain what they have. We need to have more shark tanks, dragon dens.
Speaker 2:We have a conference coming up now on the 8th of May here in Stockholm called Sime Scandinavian Interactive Media Event. It's at simenu. The idea behind that is to cross-pollinate everything ideas and people and you never leave that conference without having at least five or six lunches booked already with really interesting people that you haven't met before. We need to open up this for large companies. We need to have the Fortune 500s to come to these kind of settings, taking meetings afterwards and having the discussion what can you do? What can you do with us?
Speaker 2:So what we're doing in one of the breakout sessions, we're going to collect 10 of Sweden's most hottest and interesting AI companies to do a pitch for the audience. It's not going to be a pitch about investing. It's going to be a pitch about what can our company do for your company. And then we have a mentee where we're going to vote this is really useful for me, this is really useful for my company, or this is really useful for the nation really useful for my company or this is really useful for the nation. So, having that kind of a feedback loop, just putting them in the room to have discussions, sharing trial versions and such. I think that is so important. I really urge the necessity once again for the large incumbent companies to come there and listen to this. I mean, if Sweden's company do not join these kind of events, sweden is going to miss out Because there are not so many of these kind of events that are doing this, bringing this energy to the table, and that is what is needed.
Speaker 1:I love your approach and it is truly needed. This event is going to be amazing, as usual, so so well done, great initiative, and the Pitch and Park is going to help so many companies also to move forward in a more powerful way.
Speaker 2:Just something I want to throw in there Together with a network called Innovation Pioneers, on the day before on the 7th of May, we are doing a hands-on AI masterclass for business developer, entrepreneurs and innovation leaders, because it's quite interesting Assignment, it's all about inspiration and then we start to discuss well, sometimes you also need something hands-on, something that you really you know. Bring your computer. I'm going to teach you three things. So for whole day, we have one of Sweden's's largest experts on ai gonna be teaching how to hands-on, from a business developing perspective or entrepreneurial perspective, actually use different services, and we're doing this together, once again with a network called innovation pioneers. I wouldn't miss it for all the money in the world.
Speaker 1:Amazing. That is a very nice network, very powerful impact on the business growth definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it comes from the bottom up. I mean, usually, when it comes to networks, it comes from the top, choosing what to do. This comes from entrepreneurs, people that are innovative, entrepreneurial driven and they learn by talking to each other. So it's putting the large incumbent companies, their entrepreneurs, together and learning from each other. So that is an extremely interesting network that helps a lot of companies to become extremely more powerful.
Speaker 1:I agree. Your book Principles of Entrepreneurial Capital, written together with Roland Williams and Birgitte Huenne, introduces the four Cs model. Can you explain what the four Cs are and how they apply to the business growth? How can leaders foster entrepreneurial thinking within their organizations to drive innovation? Yes, you mentioned all those words already, so I needed to ask you about the details.
Speaker 2:No, I love it. I mean, once you get me started on this, I never stop. So please stop me when I get bored. When we started to try to understand how come the immune system kicks in when an entrepreneur starts working themselves inside a company, how come leadership is getting so threatened that they really feel that these entrepreneurs are harming the company instead of helping them to transform. When we started to look at this, we started to understand that there are two different worldviews out there, and it comes from nature.
Speaker 2:In nature, you have a stable system. We put that on the left in our X-axis. A stable system in nature is the physical laws. Gravity is a good example. Gravity will not change tomorrow, nor it will not change a thousand years from now. If you're not DC Comics or Marvel, then things are different, right. And then you have the changing system, the changing system.
Speaker 2:We usually compare this to how a snowflake is being shaped, and it's so complex, it's so chaotic we can't understand how that is going to look like in in the next time we do it. So what we see, what we, what we fairly understood, is this is also a bias. Some people see the world as stable and some people see the world as constantly changing very, very fast, and this is also two different timelines. Some people see the world in a yeah, nothing is going to be different 100 years from now. Humanity is going to be the same. And some people see that, well, we are changing so fast. I usually say we don't even know where AI is going to be 15 minutes from now. Right, and we'll look at that as the change, the click.
Speaker 2:So, looking at these two different sides, where would you position your company if you've been around for 100 years? Of course you would put yourself on the stable side and you would also recruit people that have that kind of mental stage because they are very safe and they are very loyal to the, the task that they're brought in to do. Right. But then, once in a while, you get these orders from top management we need growth, we need to be more creative. I don't know if you heard those kind of stories yeah, get somebody. That is a little bit crazy. Do we have anybody being creative or being a soul brother for innovation or something like that? And then you recruit, you look to the people that have a view on the ever-changing spectra and you try to get them into the company and they're really good when it comes to content and changing. They see around the corners, they understand what's going to happen, but they own the future and the people in top management. They own the reality. They have the responsibility for the budget and responsibility for all the people executing in the company, all the employees. And this is two different power balances ease and this is two different power balances. And when things cross over these barriers, that's when things get hard Because the immune system kicks in. The immune system is a part of the frozen lasagna thing. The immune system is both internal politics that is being hosted in the top management, but it's also the company culture.
Speaker 2:So usually an innovation project. By the way, we're not using innovation. We're trying not to use in the word innovation in the book, because it's the usually the most misunderstood word out there. Some people describe innovation as if you're changing the the coffee beans in your coffee machine. It's, it's a part of innovation. Otherwise, other people say that if you're not transforming, it's not innovation. So it's extremely different what we are doing.
Speaker 2:We're looking at either you enhance the process as it is or you break the processes, as we're going to do in a total, total different way. So when you want to build something, when you want to innovate, to support the process as the process is, you go from something being what we call the clarified context. So we have a context called clarified context. Everything is clear. That's where you execute, where the production is being done and everybody knows exactly what to do. You have the manual, you have everything lined up. Somebody have an idea there If we do A, b, c and D, we're going to be more efficient. And then you escalate that to top management and they have a very hard time taking decisions. So they call McKinsey and McKinsey helps them taking a decision. And then they write a manual and you put it down and you get an okay and you do the enhancement. This is a really easy way of looking at R&D and how innovation is being done, of looking at R&D and how innovation is being done.
Speaker 2:Companies, especially Swedish companies in the industrial world, is super good at doing this because they've been doing this for over 100 years and they get used to that. And now they get top management or the owners of the company saying well, you need to transform, you should go from petroleum-driven trucks to self-driven electronic trucks, and that is saying I know we used to do it like that before, but we're not going to do that anymore. We're going to do it in a total new way that doesn't start with the people on the factory floor. The people in the factory floor will never say if you do it like this, we don't need to come on Monday. They will never. They are there to support their process and make that as efficient as it can. So it needs to start from somewhere else.
Speaker 2:It's usually the entrepreneur coming to a conference where there are entrepreneurs and makers and shakers with new ideas and making things in a totally different way. Let's call the conference C-Map as a good example. So an entrepreneur from a large company comes there and says, oh my God, that's a good example. So an entrepreneur from a large company comes there and says, oh my god, this is so interesting, the way that you look at this. We really need that on the inside of our company. Could we do a coffee or something next week already? And then you get invited over to the company and you sit and you come on the inside of the company You've never been there before and you get a badge and everything. You're like oh my God, there's so many statues of former CEOs and the rooms are named after the owners or the owner family. You go around and you're like, oh my God, it's been like this for a hundred years. It's like a museum. They all have a museum, by the way.
Speaker 2:And then you sit down and, going from that chaotic first date that you had, you come into what we call the complex context. You come into what we call a complex context and the stage, how you work there is actually we call it the cocooning where the project needs to be in the womb and be taken care of very, very gently. You don't need to put a lot of energy into it, it will form itself. And we also named it cocooning because of the external matureness I mean. As an example, if five years ago, I had an AI project, you could put 200 million US dollars into it. You wouldn't get much further. And then, all of a sudden, it doesn't cost you more than $1,000 or $10,000 to do the same kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you need the technology to mature while you're still in cocooning, but in cocooning, the external entrepreneur, together with the entrepreneur, is trying to find a suitable way of using the technology to solve the business challenges that you have inside of the company, right? So having that the entrepreneur is usually working in what we call orbit and drill down. It's a kind of double diamond kind of process. It's being up in a satellite view, helicopter, satellite view, trying to understand the whole subject, everything around it, and drill down into the smallest details and being in those at the same time. So being strategic, tactical, operational, hands-on at the same time is extremely rare that people can have that kind of red line thinking, but that is what's been needed when you're doing that kind of a process.
Speaker 2:If you bring this into the stable side of the company, where you're there, you need to be inside of the box and you deliver inside of the box and that's what you need to do when you follow the path. It's really disturbing. Are you talking about strategies? Because we do that once a year in the strategy days. Now we are in the operationals. Top management has told us that we need to do this this way, even though I know there are more efficient ways to do things. But we are to follow this path right. So being in orbit and drilling down stage at the same time, you need to have that in kind of separate room. You have to have organizational support for that to be efficient, so it doesn't stress the rest of the organization. So those two activities are being done in two different contexts and they are both contexts in the ever-changing system. And then it needs to move from that system into what we call the stable system.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's when you have a meeting. You get 10 minutes at the management meeting and they say welcome in, it's so great to have you here. It's a little bit problematic, though. We're running short on time. Is it okay that you do it on five minutes instead? And could you once again take away the keynotes, the PowerPoint slides with happy people where you talk about vision and mission and all that? We don't need that. Go straight for the evidence-based sales numbers for the upcoming three years and then like well, it's a little bit problematic. We have never, ever done this before. We see that it's possible to do this, but we don't. We don't even have located resources because we are not the ones using that and so you haven't done your homework. How can you not go back and do your homework?
Speaker 2:So usually that's where things stop, and then top management are claiming that oh, it's so problematic with this greenhouse or X part we have of the company, they never scale. They're really good with ideas, but it never scales. Yeah, guess what the problem is? When they have the idea, when it's being presented, the responsibility for that to happen needs to be taken up by top management. If you do not have representation in top management for implementation, it's never going to happen. And this is where it fails, because if nobody in top management is responsible for implementation, it's never going to happen. And this is where it fails, because if nobody in top management is responsible for it, then the CEO is responsible for it. And the CEO usually plays much safer than bringing a project over that probably is going to take more time, cost more resources and really start cannibalizing on the existing organization that you have. But let's say the CEO says okay, nobody in top management will get their bonuses. If this is not being done, then I promise you things can happen.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't happen so often in reality. No, and this is a responsibility.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the whole thing right then I promise you things can happen. But it doesn't happen so often in reality. No, and this is a responsibility I mean, this is the whole thing right. So hopefully, if that happens, it comes into what we call optimization. Optimization you shouldn't start from the cocooning. You get a beautiful butterfly and the natural thing to do is say, well, if we cut off the wings, it could really fit into the production line that we have already. But that is not the way that you need to do it. You need to start optimizing. You need to start optimizing. What kind of organization do we need to support this? Is it going to be the same salespeople? Probably not. What kind of new competitors are we getting?
Speaker 2:A few years ago I was watching Volvo and Volvo, once again, is getting in there self-driving and all that stuff. It's so much important that you keep up with the rest. So they said, well, we're going from a manufacturing hardware company to being a software company. Just in that, having the mentality being a software company, just in that, having the mentality being a software company, then you're competing with all the software companies in Sweden for the talent, and then you need a totally different kind of attitude to attract these kind of talents, right, but this is the kind of thing that you need to do in optimization. It needs to be done in optimization because it's top management. They are the ones that's where the CMO is, the CPM, all the people that are really important to actually help with the resources that you're doing this in the large company. To begin with, right, I mean, I want to do this in the existing large company because they have muscles and they are really strong. When they want to do this in in the existing large incumbent company, because they have muscles and they have, they are really strong when they want to do something and when they're decided to do something and they already have sales in the whole, over the whole world. They have distribution networks, they have everything in place. That's why it's so beautiful to do it in their company. Otherwise, you should just you know, just run a startup and scale it and go from there, but using these muscles that's the real beauty of it. You need help from C-level to take responsibility for that to be done.
Speaker 2:Once again, when that happens, then you need to implement it into the ongoing business and that's when it starts making money. But it's also started cannibalizing once again on on the existing products that you have and things like that. You need to prepare for that and you need to have the understanding and from there you keep on innovating and enhancement. That's when it goes back to the first model and the people who look at the world as very stable they go like yeah, as I said, we always made this new thing. It's not new, it's just us evolving. So at the end, both are right and both are wrong.
Speaker 2:So it's once again it's where you are. In this different kind of context, it doesn't matter. You're not better or worse, or where you are are, but it's important that you know where the project is and it's really important that you have leadership, understanding how to care for the different stages, because otherwise you could cut things that are in cocoon that's been there for five years and they're very soon going to bring a lot of difference and transformation into the company. That's going to gain a lot for the company, but it's very easy to cut it away. Oh, nothing has been sold in that unit for the last five years.
Speaker 1:Just cut it and unfortunately, that's what we. We've been watching and we've seen so many of those cases lately. When the things are going well, it's fine, but when the market starts declining, then those are the first ones to be cut and it's not going to help the situation. Of course. Situation. Of course, albert. Many companies experiment with AI, but struggle to scale it beyond pilot projects. Based on your experience, what are the biggest challenges in moving from AI experimentation to full-scale transformation? How can businesses overcome these hurdles?
Speaker 2:So, first of all, you need to have a unit, a business unit, where you have the governance, and this needs to be in cocooning. It needs to be run as a cocooning project. They need to be able to experiment without getting judged. They need to be able to not look at the technology. A very small part, I would say, of AI is technology. The really large part of AI is understanding how this is going to affect humanity and your company. I mean, it's not hard to put an AI to read all the emails coming into the company and making analysis on how the company is doing all the time. It's ethical. How could this happen? So one of the important parts of what's happening in the cocooning. Let me go back to the Greeks for this. There are three different layers of work Epistome, which is the work that needs to be done. That's a chunk. That's usually the thing that we refer back to. That's what we measure with time. And in Sweden you need to do your 40 hours a week and that is what you're actually meaning by doing the work.
Speaker 2:In the old Greek society that was done by the slaves. We call it salary slave. That is what you're hired to do. And then you have tekna. Tekna is the understanding of creating, understanding the abstract part of what you're doing and plan for doing it more efficient. So you have improvement and everything there. And then you have forente, which is the fingertip feeling for doing your job as a perfection. And to do that, you need to sit down and understand people and humanity, and you do that by having discussions.
Speaker 2:So a lot of the things happening in cocooning is actually sitting down, people from the factory floor, understanding what. What are we doing? How can we do this better? What is important? How is this being used by our clients? Why are we making? How can we do this better? What is important? How is this being used by our clients? Why are we making this at all?
Speaker 2:Looking at IKEA why are we doing this chair? Why are we doing this? How is it being used? How is it being used in the home? How can we make it even more comfy for the people sitting here in the chair? Do we need another pillow? How can we do this?
Speaker 2:And that is being done by understanding, being in conversation, and being in conversation with your distributors, with your delivery network, with your customers, with your retail resellers, everybody and also the people inside of your own company and just having that kind of a discussion continuously, to have that intelligence in cocooning. That's when you can really really help, and this is going to be even more important for AI. How can we use that? How can we, as a large company, help our customers to become more successful by providing them with the right intelligence, or AI, or whatever you want to call it? And how is the world changing? So you need to have a big, large perspective on where the world is going and driving that thought leadership At the same time reshaping all the things that are happening. And this news for everyone. This is all. The large companies in the world is going to need this, otherwise they're going to go get bankrupt really, really soon, I think.
Speaker 1:Speaking about this, looking two, three years ahead, what industries do you see as most vulnerable for AI-driven disruption and what emerging AI trends do you think business leaders should prepare for right now?
Speaker 2:I did, still working for Apple 10 years ago, there was a release, I think it was 2014. It said in 20 years, 54% of all the work, all labor being done in Sweden is going to be vanished. Back then, 10 years ago, it was really progressive. It was really, you know, people said no, no, no, it's never going to be like that. If you read that report today, you're like yeah, only 54%. I think, rather, 75% will disappear.
Speaker 2:It's interesting and we see a lot of things happening right now, with, last week, sora and some really new things doing incredible interesting things. I, rather, will look at the professions that are changing the least, and that was priests. So I think all the companies are vulnerable when it comes to AI, because it's about understanding why they are relevant today and the why is kind of change. It's constantly over time. I can't imagine what's going to happen in the upcoming 10 years. It's almost impossible to understand how large the change is going to be, I presume. But being a priest is quite good.
Speaker 2:You were asking in the last question how to implement AI and get a spread of it. I think having a chief of AI officer in the cocooning part of any of that group is the first that you should hire. The second should be in understanding. How can we gently approach this thing that we do not understand fully, and it's going to definitely change the way that we behave, especially towards each other, make us change belief and make things in different ways, being human-centric, not looking at this as technology. I think that is extremely important. We need to have the discussion from a much broader, cross-industrial, cross-disciplinary way, because this is one of the most important technology paradigms that we are crossing we've ever done before, and it's crucial for humanity that we do this correctly, because the biggest challenge what happens when we have this really extreme, large paradigm shift is that our power balance also shifts and that makes some people not being kind to other people.
Speaker 1:I agree it is really important and all the companies, all the participants of this shift, this transformation, they need to develop understanding for why this is important and why they should invest into it and why they should disrupt their traditional ways of running their business and approaching this technological transformation and transition. Because this is something new, this is something different and so incredibly powerful compared to everything else we've been dealing with.
Speaker 2:Yes, and also the approach needs to be in that way. As an example, you never put a ROI a return on investment on a priest. As an example, you never put a ROI a return on investment on a priest, and the same. It's quite hard right.
Speaker 1:It's a different way of approaching business In our world exactly spirituality and who are human beings and the business world? They are very separated and the gap is getting just bigger. And, interesting enough, exactly yesterday, I had a conversation with one very interesting business owner and we were talking about this gap and how humans and businesses can cover it somehow or reduce the risks of running this development and AI evolution without taking into consideration human centricity. So I couldn't agree more. I love this conversation and you've been sharing so many insights which are going to definitely be appreciated by our listeners and viewers. But to wrap up today's conversation, I would like to ask you the last question. For business leaders who want to build a competitive edge in AI-driven growth, what are the three most important actions they should take today? What strategies will help them not just keep up but lead in this evolving landscape? So, please, three most important actions for today Nice.
Speaker 2:Quite easy. First of all, build governance. Put yourself a group of people and they should be in the cocooning part so that they should be in the complex context. With that freedom and all that support. That is the absolutely most important Start being better to listen in what's happening in the AI environment, and that means sending those people out to speak to the AI community and listen to them. Listen to the community that doesn't mean only for the entrepreneurs to listen. It means for the entrepreneurs also to tell top management what is happening, and top management needs to be listening to the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs outside of the company on what's happening.
Speaker 2:So that was the second one. The third one when the project comes from cocooning, you need to have a protector. You need to have somebody inside of top management being responsible for this. You need mutual responsibility for the CEO to freeze all the bonuses if this is not happening, if you're not taking responsibility for these projects coming into the company, because it's not a natural way of bringing innovation into the company. But they need to take full responsibility of that. If they do that, this can scale. Otherwise, it will never scale. It will just be something happening in the IT department or some entrepreneurs running around doing skank works in another building at campus. So these three get organizational support for it, work with, try to listen to what's happening and take responsibility from top management that this is going to be done. These are the definitely three most important parts for this to happen.
Speaker 1:Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for wrapping it all up and summing up in such a powerful way. It's been such a great pleasure having you here today. Albert Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Amy. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Digital Transformation and AI for Humans. I'm Amy and it was enriching to share this time with you. Remember, the core of any transformation lies in our human nature how we think, feel and connect with others. It is about enhancing our emotional intelligence, embracing a winning mindset and leading with empathy and insight. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes where we uncover the latest trends in digital business and explore the human side of technology and leadership. Until next time, keep nurturing your mind, fostering your connections and leading with heart.
