Put AI to Work – with Focus on Right Use Cases and Co-creation with IBM Client Engineering

• By co-creating AI solutions with industry experts, in the format of a pilot, companies and partners explore and integrate generative AI capabilities into their business – to save time, money or create new business value

• Blendow Group, Nexer, Edsvärd Hållbarhet, BanFast and Vasaloppet have already successfully explored IBM watsonx to drive business innovation with AI, together with IBM Client Engineering

• A typical engagement is built and concluded within 4 weeks’ timeframe

An enterprise ability to innovate is the core differentiator to stay relevant in today’s business landscape. As AI set a higher pace on transformation and digitalization, companies need to respond to changing market conditions and customer demands quicker than ever before.

To support clients and partners on their mission of innovating at speed, IBM has invested in Client Engineering, a deeply skilled and multi-disciplinary squad who deliver proof of experience, with a value and human-centered approach. During our engagements clients subject matter experts and IBM experts co-create new solutions allowing clients to explore value of IBM technology at speed – all achieved within a 4-week timeframe. In 2023, our Client Engineering team in the Nordics conducted over 100 engagements across various sectors, including finance, telco, retail, government, and across different use cases.

With the rise of generative AI in 2023 – that has been nothing short of remarkable – there is an urge to drive innovation powered by the capabilities of AI. In fact, companies in Europe are already on the fast-track to adopt AI – about 82% of European leaders recently surveyed have already deployed generative AI or intend to deploy generative AI in the next year.

In Sweden, businesses are already driving results with AI. Just over the last couple of months, we have completed multiple engagements supporting clients and partners to explore watsonx, IBM’s AI and data platform. The solution helps companies adopt AI that is open, targeted, trusted and empowering and ultimately, use AI to develop new innovative solutions and products.

• Blendow Group handles a diverse array of legal documents, ranging from court rulings to legislation and case law. In their quest for a solution to efficiently summarize and evaluate these diverse legal documents they developed an innovative AI tool based on IBM watsonx.ai. The project resulted in a 70% reduction in discovery and analysis time, along with a 90% decrease in document summarization and analysis time. The solution was co-created with the IBM Client Engineering team and Nexer, an IBM Business Partner. More

• To enhance future customer service for skiers, Vasaloppet, the world’s biggest cross-country ski race, Vasaloppet partnered with IBM to create a new virtual assistant solution named Sofia. Skiers would benefit from 24/7 customer support, obtaining answers to frequently asked questions or being connected with the customer support, thereby enhancing the customer experience. Sofia is developed as a Minimal Viable Product (MVP), and relies on IBM watsonx Assistant for conversational AI and on watsonx.ai to access data on Vasaloppet’s website.

• To address the pressing need for a safer workplace in the construction industry, Swedish company Edsvärd developed a pilot solution aimed at preventing work-related accidents caused by coordination gaps. Their SaaS solution, powered by IBM watsonx.ai and IBM watsonx.data, offers improved work activity measurements for the property management and construction industry, ensuring workers’ safety in some of the most complex environments, such as operating in areas with high voltage installations, fire hazards, and traffic risks. Banfast, a Stockholm-based real estate company, is already leveraging Edsvärd’s SaaS to enhance daily operations and streamline communication of their activities through improved use of technical information. More

IBM Client engineering engagements always focus on client’s context and use cases, which makes business outcomes and value created tangible. But if new to AI, here is some guidance on where to start for defining your use case:

• Efficiency and productivity: Where do you spend working hours with little or no value add from an employee?
• Costs: Where do you have expensive and no value adding activities?
• Profitable growth: Where can you unlock new value, find ways of serving new clients, offer new products?

As we interlock with clients, we see core use cases areas in focus that are most in-demand by companies as they explore generative AI. These are Customer Service (support employee work by partly automating workflows), HR/Talent transformation (support recruitment and talent development) and Marketing (using generative AI for creating and curating content). In every use case, the key to success lies in seamlessly aligning business and technology strategies. This involves identifying use cases with client subject matter experts to pinpoint areas where AI can be effectively implemented within the company.

For decades, IBM has been at the forefront of breakthroughs in AI — from the world’s first checkers playing program to building an AI supercomputer in the cloud. A recent study by Digital Science finds that IBM is leading in Gen AI developments by the number of patents registered in the area. We invite you to partner with us and our growing network of business partners, we are ready to support you on your AI mission. A first step towards exploring your use cases is easy – simply reach out to us:

Emma Bachner

Senior Client Engineering Squad Leader, IBM Technology Northern Central Eastern Europe (LinkedIn)

Let’s create!