'Collaboration for AI in Municipalities and Civil Society' has crossed the finish line

Katarina Lagerqvist
Kristinehamns municipality

Networks and a deeper knowledge of AI solutions—what is required and what benefit they can provide—are the most important things we took away from Kraftsamlingen. 

Our participation has, among other things, resulted in all municipalities in Värmland now being involved in A Shared Digital Assistant for the Public Sector, thanks to the knowledge I was able to pass on to them. I have also been able to contribute to work with Compare and county-wide issues concerning the AI Catalyst in Värmland with experiences and lessons learned. The work in the project clearly showed how important it is to learn from what others are doing. 

Through the AI Council, we have had at least some political impact by being able to provide input with a united voice from the municipalities on what we saw as important moving forward, for example, the need for an AI strategy and the importance of learning and acting together.

Therese Perner
Lidingö Stad

The most important thing we gained is the importance of a clear vision and having a concept for what a project should deliver and how the result should be managed. I also think the importance of cooperation was a clear common thread in all projects. 

Following the project, we have continued to build on our masking service. It has been scaled up within the organization and we continue the development. We have also started a new project called Document Search, which is based on the prototype developed within the project. 

Overall, we have learned to work iteratively and cooperate across municipal boundaries and in close collaboration with the business sector. This has led to our supplier developing something they call the "Lidingö Model," which involves a close and transparent partnership between the municipality and the supplier where both work together towards a common goal. However, this requires the organization to allocate resources for it.

Åse Andersson
Linköpings municipality

We set learning as our most important goal in the project, and we achieved it in four areas: What AI can be used for in social services, what prerequisites are needed within the organization, knowledge about information management, and lessons learned about our own data. 

The work also clarified the need for coordination in the municipality as a whole and for having a common structure. However, the great need for national coordination also became clear, particularly regarding data sharing and legal guidance. 

Furthermore, the project contributed insights into the need for operational management in our own organization, where we must be prepared to incur management costs in both money and personnel resources to achieve sustainable digital solutions. And that we need to work on our data structure. We have continued working and see positive development in these areas today. Even if Kraftsamlingen itself did not bring this about, the venture and our project contributed additional arguments. I see that as a strength.

Sara Hugosson
ChildX

For us, the most important thing was to get started, to dare to test new technology and learn along the way! Simply put, "start our AI journey." We were six organizations (1000 Möjligheter, ChildX, MÄN, Novahuset, Storasyster, and Tjejzonen) that together developed an AI tool (FRONTA) to streamline the analysis of chats that support organizations have with children and young people. 

After the project concluded, we have continued to develop the solution and received more funds from, among others, the World Childhood Foundation to implement it in a real-world environment. FRONTA is used by the organizations today, but given how fast everything is moving in AI development, we will soon need to update the tool again. 

The work has also helped us understand what opportunities exist—how we can more effectively analyze data and information. It has sparked a new curiosity and desire to improve even more. I believe Kraftsamlingen was crucial for many organizations to start thinking about how AI can be used in their operations. There will be a big void now that it's over!

Ylva Christiansson
Friends

For us, Kraftsamlingen was a way to start small and thereby build an understanding of the necessary collaboration for it to work, and to start thinking about the possibilities that exist with AI in other parts of the operation. 

Following the conclusion of our project, we have experimented further with AI categorization of open-ended text responses. Kraftsamlingen was significant for the individual civil society organizations that participated, but they were quite few in relation to the number of municipalities. 

It is difficult to see an impact on Sweden's civil society organizations as a whole because it is a very large and diversified group of actors, most of whom did not come into contact with the project. However, all extra support to civil society organizations is valuable as we have such small internal resources to invest in experimental activities!

This was the Collaboration for AI in Municipalities and Civil Society 

The Collaboration for AI in Municipalities and Civil Society program served as the engine for a national initiative from 2022–2025 to strengthen the capability of Sweden's municipalities and civil society organizations to use artificial intelligence. Through a strategic partnership between AI Sweden and Vinnova, in collaboration with the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR), the Agency for Digital Government (Digg), and the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society Affairs (MUCF), the venture created a national arena for joint work and organizational AI maturity. 

A central part has been the financing of around 30 development projects and the creation of extensive structural capital. The initiative has reached over 200 of Sweden's municipalities and 50 civil society organizations. 

The experiences show that the biggest obstacles to AI development are not technical in nature but concern leadership, legal frameworks, data preparedness, and the capacity for long-term collaboration. Through concrete development work and experience sharing, the program has led to increased AI maturity and consensus, not least through the establishment of the AI Council for municipalities, which gave the sector a united voice in national policy dialogues. An important system effect is the emergence of cooperation between organizations in the Kraftsamlingen Initiative and new initiatives that have been started based on identified needs.