Bergur Thormundsson
Research expert covering technology in the Nordics, AI and smart cities
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to make inroads in nearly all aspects of business across the world, nations must adapt to this change and gain an understanding on the widespread effects on their economies. The Nordic countries are no exception, integrating AI across a variety of sectors and businesses. Already, the region has made immense gains in the adoption of AI, with its use nearly doubling in many segments. The AI market in the region has also taken leaps in size, having grown from some two billion U.S. dollars in 2020 to around four billion in 2024, with a staggering growth of a billion U.S. dollars between 2023 and 2024.
Generative AI and outside expertise growing
Though the growth of generative AI in the Nordics should not come as a surprise, as its use has been growing globally, it is now reportedly in use among nearly 77 percent of businesses in the Nordics. Following hard on its heels are natural language processing (NLP) technologies, advanced analysis, and large language models (LLM). These have all seen significant growth since 2022. While companies in the Nordics have often preferred to rely on internal expertise when dealing with AI developments, there has been a significant shift in the use of outsourced expertise and commercial platforms in the region. This growth can be attributed to both the new nature of AI technology and the fact that none of the larger mainstream AI models are of Nordic origin.Plenty of roadblocks to AI use
Despite the well-educated and highly digitized nature of the Nordic countries, they still face struggles in the adoption of AI technologies. Chief among these is the lack of talent, as while education is free, the sheer volume of AI experts needed is a global problem and pushes the Nordics into competition with other large economies for labor. There is another, notably Nordic, issue of the lack of shared practices regarding data. While the Nordics are similar, they are not the same, and data privacy, influenced by EU law in three of the countries, means that the sharing of data is not as smooth as one could expect.The Nordics need to keep up
Usage of AI tools in the Nordic region is high, with nearly half the population of the Nordics using such tools to some degree in 2024. This makes it even more important to invest and improve the infrastructures of the region to cope with AI data demands. The importance of data sharing and unifying market standards across the region would also be a big boost. A collective development would enable the barely 30 million-sized population of the Nordics to compete with far larger economies and markets in attracting AI-related labor and skills.
