New report confirms fears: Sweden is losing ground in the AI race

The need for a stronger national AI strategy is sparking debate, and at the same time, a new global survey shows that Swedish business has lost ground compared to other European countries over the past year.

The AI Readiness Index is a global survey from Cisco which is now published for the second year. In the survey conducted in 2023, Swedish companies were very far ahead in the work of planning and implementing AI compared to other European countries. But in this year's survey, which was published in November, the Swedish numbers are significantly less flattering.

Based on a series of questions, participating businesses are categorized into four categories based on how far along they are on their AI journey – as leaders, hunters, followers and laggards. In this year’s survey, only five percent of the Swedish companies defined as leaders – the corresponding figure in the 2023 survey was 22 percent. Almost three-quarters of companies, 73 percent, rank in one of the two worst categories compared to 56 percent in 2023.

From being at the top of Europe, Sweden has been overtaken a year later by several comparable countries, including Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Great Britain showcase faster development.

“A lot is happening incredibly quickly in AI development and it is a race that involves all industries and almost all businesses. At the same time, it is not a sprint race but a marathon where endurance is at least as important as explosiveness, and it is far too early to decide who is the winner and loser. But the more contact you lose with the lead, the more power you need to make up the gap, even if there is a long way to go,” says Thomas Brännström, CTO at Cisco Sweden. 

In the sub-area of strategy, where Sweden excelled particularly positively in last year's survey, the proportion of leaders has dropped from 37 percent to 12 percent.

The issue of strategy has come into sharp focus in Sweden through the report as Chairman of the AI Commission Carl-Henric Svanberg presented to the government on November 26, more than six months before it was scheduled to be made public.

The report describes the situation for Sweden as urgent and the Commission proposes a series of measures and investments at the government level to support the public sector and the business community to increase preparedness in key issues such as research, skills development, cybersecurity, and access to computing power and infrastructure.

"Our survey confirms the AI Commission's view that Swedish AI development is currently progressing more slowly than in comparable countries, and it is important and good that there are already proposals for concrete measures to be taken. All parties in society have an important role to play in the continued race and we look forward to participating in the continued dialogue and with concrete measures where we can support," says Thomas Brännström.

Cisco AI Readiness The index is based on responses from nearly 8,000 decision-makers at companies with more than 500 employees, in 30 countries. 150 Swedish businesses participate in the survey, which measures the degree of AI readiness in six categories – strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, skills and culture.