Managing Firm Resources at the Digital Technology Frontier - The Case of Finland’s Artificial Intelligence Accelerator

Constantly evolving and advancing digital technologies force firms to manage their resources actively. This process is fraught with uncertainties, especially when dealing with innovations at the technology frontier. In this study, we investigate how firms participating in Finland’s Artificial Intelligence Accelerator (FAIA) collaborated and managed their resources to advance their use of AI. Unlike traditional start-up accelerators catering to early-stage companies, FAIA focused on facilitating AI adoption by established organizations. Firms participating in FAIA included some of the largest Nordic companies, such as Elisa (telecom operator), Nordea (bank), Posti (Finnish national postal services), S-group (retail chain), Telia (telecom operator), and YLE (Finnish national broadcasting company). The participating organizations formed several semi-formal groups (accelerator batches), typically with 4-8 participants each, and concentrated on specific types of AI use cases or AI-related practices. The batches met regularly throughout the acceleration period of approximately six months. The role of the government-funded FAIA team was to facilitate collaboration, stimulate AI adoption within the participating companies, and extract the key lessons and inform a broader audience of organizations in Finland.