AI goes from hype to business value – Nordic leaders meet at IFS Connect

Nordic companies are increasingly focusing on faster implementation and measurable results in their AI initiatives, while industry leaders prepare to gather at IFS Connect Nordics 2026, which takes place tomorrow.

The annual event brings together customers, partners and experts from across the IFS ecosystem and is expected to highlight how industrial AI is evolving from early experimentation to practical use. in ERP and capital-intensive industries. For many organizations, the focus is now shifting towards how AI can create value in daily operations.

The question is no longer whether companies should adopt AI, but how quickly they can get it to deliver value in real business processes, says Fredrik Wingren on Addition, an IFS Premium Partner and gold sponsor of the event.

This change is particularly evident in ERP environments, where companies want to integrate AI capabilities directly into core systems rather than running isolated pilot projects. The goal is to improve efficiency, support decision-making, and better utilize available data.

Events like IFS Connect plays an important role in this development by providing a platform to share practical experiences and insights across industry boundaries. By bringing together organizations with similar challenges, the event contributes to faster learning and to identifying new opportunities for improvement.

According to Addovation, there is also a growing need to validate AI use cases more quickly.

We see a clear shift in expectations. Organizations are increasingly focusing on testing concrete ideas and understanding their value early on,” says Wingren.

In response, companies are adopting more time-bound approaches to innovation, such as Additions ”AI in a day”, where specific use cases are quickly tested and developed into working prototypes.

This is driving a broader interest in iterative approaches, where solutions are developed and refined in shorter cycles rather than through long, exploratory projects. The goal is to reduce uncertainty while aligning initiatives with real business needs.

At the same time, companies continue to face challenges related to data quality, system complexity, and organizational maturity, which can affect how quickly AI solutions are implemented and scaled up.

As industrial AI continues to mature in the Nordics, the ability to effectively move from idea to implementation becomes an increasingly important factor in realizing business value.