Interview Questions for Tuomas Syrjänén, AI Chief of Futurice

Futurice, a Finnish tech consultancy, has undergone a significant transformation, evolving into an AI and data-driven business. This shift was driven by a strategic decision to bring more value to clients by building additional skills such as design, business, and data skills.

The company's success is based on a unique combination of in-house skills and a strong culture, both internally and externally. Futurice has advised companies such as Kesko in their digital transformation, helping to integrate AI and data-driven approaches as part of broader IT services frameworks alongside partners like CGI, Elisa, and Tata Consultancy Services.

One of Futurice's notable projects involves collaborating with Elenia, an energy company, to create an energy-related solution that combines network and control system data with weather forecasts to predict and estimate possible network damage. The company has also worked with Fortum, another energy company, to optimize hydropower production by managing and storing data, presenting it to end-users, and optimizing system performance.

Data and AI are at the heart of Futurice's operations, with the company moving towards a paradigm where data-driven decision-making and simulations are key. This is reflected in projects such as the Bubble Burster, a search engine that reveals who knows what within a company based on people's public digital footprint, and a recommendation and personalization engine for media and retail companies to create transformative user experiences.

However, the impact of data-driven innovation on organizational culture and business models is still at the start, but it's expected to be a major competitive factor in the future. One of the main obstacles to the adoption of data and AI by companies includes data quality issues, behavioral change, and the challenge of bringing business, people, and technology together. The biggest challenge identified is the significant gap between the business and the technical people, requiring a bridge between the two.

Futurice has faced this challenge head-on, developing solutions that connect business, people, and technology. For instance, the company helps clients connect business, people, and technology by providing insights using proxy data, such as access control data in construction projects.

The company has also tackled real-world problems with data and AI, such as improving the process of assigning doctors to patients based on digital footprints, and collecting voluntary symptom reports from the general public during the coronavirus crisis to raise awareness of where testing capacity could be too limited.

As Futurice looks to the future, the goal is to level up how they create value for clients, improve access to organizational knowledge, become more client-centric, and further strengthen their culture-with data and AI at the forefront. The company believes that data and AI are about connectivity, aiming to connect with clients, different parts of an organization, leadership agendas to people's daily work, and core business processes.

In a nod to the future, Futurice has trialed facial recognition systems for both Helsinki Airport and Oslo, as well as for Finnair and Finavia to register passengers for check-in without the need for physical documents. The company's focus is on ensuring relevance in five years' time, as they continue to evolve and adapt in the rapidly changing landscape of AI and data.