COMMENT:

It sounds strange that it’s time to digitize Norway. But we were laggards in the digital world even before artificial intelligence (AI) existed. Therefore, at least one consulting survey suggests that Norwegian businesses are also lagging behind in adopting artificial intelligence.

It is a shame that one of the richest countries in the world is unable to look further ahead.

It is no longer news that the world needs environmentally friendly changes, there is a shortage of workers in some fields, and this will only get worse as humans age.

Here, technological developments and digitalization of the public and private sectors have a central role. But you should jump on the bandwagon because investment in digitalization will pay off.

It’s going too slow

NHO CEO Ole Erik Almlid invited a digital power takeover from the NHO annual conference stage this week. The NHO involved LOs, academia and government, and they announced a major meeting later in the spring.

That’s all well and good!

In September, Liv Dingsør, managing director of Digital Norway, told Computerworld that “The green transition and digitalization are closely linked, but Norway is changing too slowly”.

And this is where the shoe is pressed.

Norway ranks at the top of the world in terms of technological development in the oil and gas sector, and its surrounding industries are also experiencing rapid development. This creates a void for technology development elsewhere in Norway as billions of dollars in investment and the brightest minds are attracted by high salaries in academically interesting fields where many green developments are emerging.

But things move too slowly in most of Norwegian business life.

Thousands of billions

In addition to getting sufficient training in areas that cannot fill all the vacant skill positions, it also aims to make people much more productive.

The NHO also submits a report on this subject in connection with their annual conference. This suggests that Norway can increase value creation in Norway by several thousand billion kroner.

– Digitalization and artificial intelligence can bring us more value creation, more prosperity and more prosperity. More. And the sooner we get it right, the greater the benefits for all of society, NHO-Almlid said in a press release announcing the report.

Once again all is well by NHO.

But Norway will not achieve anything without proper use of technology so that increasing productivity truly becomes a reality.

In conjunction with the report mentioned above, a survey was conducted and provided responses from more than 5,000 businesses. Nelfo, NHO, Abelia and Finans Norge were behind the report.

Lost a little

This shows the increasing use of AI tools in Norway. However, only 25 percent answered that they use AI tools. Of those, only about half said they had a strategy for AI or were working on one, NHO wrote.

– Many believe that Norway is a world leader in digitalization. We do not. Although the use of AI in business in Norway is increasing, progress is too slow. Both businesses and politicians must do more if Norway is to successfully use AI to develop truly new and competitive solutions, said Øystein E. Søreide, CEO of Abelia.

Taking a closer look at the Abelia survey, only about 30 percent of the half of respondents who said they had or were considering an AI strategy answered “Yes” that they actually had a strategy.

Therefore, all warning lights must be on.

It is sad that businesses in Norway have not progressed beyond playing around with AI, and few have a strategy for using AI in business.

1+1=3

At the Politisk kvarter in NRK on Tuesday 9 January, NHO-Almlid and Karianne Tung, Norway’s new digitalization minister, met to discuss artificial intelligence.

Both agreed that there are huge opportunities associated with new technologies if their use is regulated properly.

– I believe that we need a step change and adoption of technology in the public and business sectors. “I really believe in the statement that one plus one is more than two,” said Tung.

But all of Norway must take advantage of this opportunity.

Businesses in Norway, for example, can take advantage of all the changes that still need to be made to make the world greener and report on this properly to also learn about AI, use it and create value from it all.

One element of this, which shows why Norway is experiencing a slowdown, is that this should be facilitated so that it is possible for companies to retrain their employees without the retrained people having to be taxed on those “profits”.

Anyone who learns something new is actually making an effort for society as a whole.