In the late 18th century, the vast majority of people worked in the fields. Food production was slow, physically demanding, and highly vulnerable to the weather. Then the Industrial Revolution brought fertilizers, mechanical seed drills, iron ploughs, and later tractors. Suddenly, one farmer could feed ten people. Labour productivity in agriculture increased by as much as 300 percent and society changed irreversibly.
Today, we are once again on the threshold of a similar transformation. Artificial intelligence is not merely a technology; it is an enabler of a new era. It can automate routine work, improve decision-making, and free people to focus more on creative and value-creating tasks.
AI is today’s most important business issue, reshaping the operating environment of companies more dramatically than any technological shift since the internet. Yet in many Finnish companies, this opportunity is still being watched from the sidelines. There is talk of responsibility, but bold moves are avoided.
Now that the AI race is moving from the use of general-purpose language models towards AI agents and applications developed for organisations’ specific needs, Finland has reached the last possible moment to wake up to AI’s potential. Although a recent international comparison by Stanford University placed Finland among the leading countries in terms of AI potential, I fear that the Finnish business sector is in a state of hibernation when it comes to making use of AI. The findings of the Aalto University study are alarming: as many as 80 percent of companies fail in implementing AI. Falling off the AI bandwagon is no longer a future threat — it is already happening to many Finnish companies.
First, a change in mindset is needed. The true potential of AI does not lie merely in individual applications or tools, but in its ability to transform the way an entire organisation operates. This is not an IT department project; it is a project for top management. Company leaders must take personal responsibility for integrating AI into the core of the business. Senior management must also actively learn to use AI and apply it in decision-making. Otherwise, they may soon find themselves former leaders.
Second, because no one yet knows exactly how far AI’s impact will ultimately reach, companies cannot afford to wait or settle for cautious experiments. General-purpose language models, for example, provide general answers and have little understanding of a company’s goals or operations. Companies should instead turn their attention to training AI with their own organisational data and key materials, enabling it to learn continuously and produce better answers.
Third, AI will not deliver its greatest value if it merely agrees with its users or operates without sufficient judgment. One example of this is AI providing answers even when the user’s questions or input data are incomplete. Instead, AI should challenge and guide employees and management towards better decisions. Companies should develop their use of AI in a direction where it can identify situations in which the information provided is insufficient and, for example, ask the user for further details in order to solve the problem.
Too often, Finnish companies take comfort in the idea that they can first watch from the sidelines and see what the rest of the world does. AI investments are not optional; they are a necessity. Companies that delay investment will not only lose their competitive advantage, but risk withering away. This may also require cannibalising existing business in order to secure future growth.
As AI transforms industries, business models, and the way work is done, Finnish companies must boldly set out to build competitive advantage through AI. Finland has every prerequisite for success in the global AI race: world-class education, strong technological expertise, and a culture of innovation. But the lesson of history is clear: those who seize a technological leap early are the ones who build the winners of the next era.