Artificial intelligence and product development

29 January 2025

From AETC Networking event Photo HAE Museum Nord

On 27th – 28thJanuary 2025, a large number of tourism companies from Northern Norway, Northern Sweden and Northern Finland gathered for a seminar in Luleå. The purpose was to learn about using digital technology in branding, marketing and product development. Among other things, we discussed whether artificial intelligence (hereafter referred to as AI) can be good work tools – and for what?

First: what is artificial intelligence?

In the Great Norwegian Encyclopedia, AI is listed as follows:

“Artificial intelligence is information technology that adjusts its own activity and therefore appears to be intelligent. It is often said that a computer that is able to solve tasks without receiving instructions from a human on how to do it has artificial intelligence. For example, “intelligent” search engines suggest matches based on data about previous searches and other user behavior. This is called machine learning, and has a wide range of applications, from simple programs in smartphones to chatbots and self-driving cars. There is also artificial intelligence that does not learn, such as so-called rule-based systems, where complex rules for “intelligent behavior” are specified by humans in advance”

If you click here, you can read about many aspects and types of artificial intelligence.

What is the ARctic Europe Tourism cluster (AETC)?

The seminar is an initiative under the auspices of the Arctic Europe Tourism Cluster (AETC). The goal of the Arctic Europe Tourism Cluster (AETC) project is to ensure that tourism in the Arctic develops into an increasingly robust and regenerative tourism. The project aims to meet future expectations for the benefit of the tourism industry, local communities and visitors to Arctic Europe. AECT brings together a number of tourism companies from Northern Norway, Northern Sweden and Northern Finland. Museum Nord is among the participating companies. You can read more about the project here.

Photo: Museum Nord

The project has several work packages

This time it was about work package 3: Develop a new innovative customer model for Arctic Europe based on new insights and link the model to new ways and knowledge about using digital technology in branding and marketing, also in collaboration with new partners.

Program for the gathering in Luleå.

Practical examples in the program

In practice, this meant that at the seminar we heard varied and interesting presentations from different speakers:

What is AI? Where do we see AI in “daily use”? Is AI one “program” (for example, only ChatGTP.com) or many different ones? To what extent do travellers use AI, and how? What pitfalls and opportunities does the use of AI open up? How can AI revolutionize the travel industry? Why should we, almost regardless of what type of company you are, learn about AI and take advantage of the opportunities? And not least: how?

Picture from lectures on various tools that all fall into the category AI as well as tips on what to use tools for. Photo: Museum Nord

A number of practical examples were brought up of how travelers today already use AI to be inspired, find information before and during their trip.

Ville Pohjonen from Kuulu gave an inspiring presentation about how companies today already use AI and how AI will affect the ranking (and thus visibility) of your website. Photo: Museum Nord

Among travelers from North America, as many as 40% use AI in connection with their travel planning, as a “personal travel advisor” along the way ? and 80% of these are again very satisfied with being able to use AI tools. There is reason to reflect on how this in turn can create expectations for the experience itself and whether what the guest ultimately experiences is in line with expectations.

We also received fun and useful assignments related to product development, along with good advice on service design. This work was led by Arctic Factory from Rovaniemi, Finland.

The workshop leader was generous with licorice, which kept up both his mood and his blood sugar. Photo: Museum Nord

Ethics

A number of ethical issues were also discussed. Märtha Rehnberg from DareDisrupt and Petter Norén from Swedish Lapland’s Visitors Boards held two different and nice presentations related to this topic.

AI requires energy. Can we justify developing power resources, using large water resources, mineral extraction as part of the development and operation of AI? What does AI do to human expectations? What does AI do with human knowledge? Should we blindly trust everything the “AI tools” tell us? Who and what interests are behind the AI companies?

Of course, the seminar does not provide answers to all this, but shed light on both this and other issues from several sides. Very interesting!

How does KI affect us at Museum Nord?

The most important thing is to know that AI will not ? It’s already here, and it’s in widespread use. Some argue that it will lead to a paradigm shift and that AI will affect us to a far greater extent than social media (at least related to travel, holidays and leisure). There will be more AI.

• We need to learn more about what AI is, how it affects both the customer journey and the visitor experience.
• AI will not replace people and human touch, but can be an important tool for product development of experiences and digitalization of services.
• AI can help us, but we must know what we want to achieve and retain control over the development of our own business.
• Different tools can help us with different goals. It’s not just about travelers and customer experiences, but about, for example, utilizing collected data, increased knowledge and streamlined processes? always in consultation with human intelligence.

• For the website www.museumnord.no and all our museums and the organization’s work: The advent of AI tools only makes it even more important that we further develop our pages and fill them with good, correct content. Tools that Chatgpt.com obtain their information primarily from “official sites”, then from other relevant sites of various nature. If the information we ourselves are perceived as sufficient, AI tools such as ChatGPT.com will primarily extract information from there. This means that the information is extracted from pages that we have control over, and information that we ourselves have quality assured.

Screenshot of “conversation” between Hege and ChatGTP.

A little about Luleå

«Luleå municipality belongs to the province of Norrbotten which is located in Norrbotten County. Sweden has 25 provinces. In the past, Sweden was not a country but a kingdom that consisted of several countries or provinces. In the 1600s, the counties were created that were given the right by the Swedish state to govern and decide locally. Luleå municipality is 2100 square kilometers in size (approximately 300,000 football fields) and has almost 79,000 inhabitants.» (taken from www.lulea.se)

Winter in Luleå. Photo: Thomas Åberg

The city of Luleå was founded around the medieval church in Gammelstaden in 1621. Due to the great land uplift, the town had to be moved a mile closer to the coast in 1649. Then the city of Luleå ended up where it is today. It is the river, the sea, the forest and the ore that have shaped the municipality.

Today, there are about 79,000 people living in the city and about 170,000 in the entire region. It is Sweden’s 29th largest municipality. Luleå has one of the country’s largest ports. Luleå has a large steel industry and advanced research related to the metallurgical industry. It is the University of Luleå. Facebook’s data center at Porsön is the largest in Europe. Luleå is one of the municipalities in Sweden that invests the most in culture. It is one of the country’s sunniest places.

Want to read more about Luleå? www.luleå.se have a lot of information about the municipality, history and more. The www.visitluleå.se also offers information about activities and experiences. Source: Lulelå municipality’s website www.lulea.se

Caption: The conference took place at Scandic Hotel Luleå. Photo: Museum Nord

Thanks for a useful collection!

We take this opportunity to send our thanks to the AETC project team for yet another good gathering with relevant issues and useful knowledge! For more information about the project, visit the official website of the AETC.

Several companies from individuals, chains and destination companies in our region Ofoten, Lofoten and Vesterålen are involved in the project. Project work can be intensive and a bit demanding, but there is also often a lot of laughter and fun, and good networking opportunities. Here is our own Hege pictured during dinner at Brändön Lodge together with Destination Lofoten’s tourism manager/general manager Line Samuelsen. Photo: Museum Nord

More about the AETC project

We also have previous articles from activities in the project here: