AI strategy
Where AI strengthens or erodes your competitive position, and the roadmap and competences that follow.
Gunnar Strandberg AB Stockholm, Sweden
AI strategy,
built hands-on.
I help investors and leadership teams turn agentic AI into working processes, products and results — combining more than 20 years of strategy and transformation work with hands-on AI engineering.
Leading AI acceleration across the Bure Equity portfolio — eight companies activated in 2026.
Gunnar StrandbergStockholm, Sweden
Engagements
Approach
Where AI changes
a company
I assess and develop AI maturity across four pillars. Every engagement starts with a baseline, and progress is measured against it.
AI transformation of processes
Reinventing how work gets done, with AI agents where they fit and people where they matter.
GenAI capability & adoption
Shared skills, the right tools, clear governance and active champions, so the whole organisation uses AI safely and well.
AI in products
Making products AI-ready and building AI into them, starting from your own product data.
Programmes
Firestarter and
Afterburner
A modular AI programme in two phases. You choose the domain, the blocks and the pace. Every block is hands-on and ends with something your team can use the next day.
We agree the domain, appoint an AI Sponsor and an AI Lead, and run a ten-minute readiness survey with the participants.
Firestarter — the foundations
For leadership teams and functions that need to get moving, fast and safely. Builds pillars B and C.
LLM basics & hands-on
A shared, practical level of AI competence, with exercises built on your own scenarios.
AI transformation of processes
A full-day workshop taking one real process to a working prototype with the 5-step framework.
(Signature block — also available on its own.)
AI policy & governance
A tiered AI policy and governance baseline, including the EU AI Act.
AI change & adoption
A rollout plan, a champion network and a way to measure adoption.
Then: 30-60-90 follow-up — three monthly check-ins with your AI Sponsor and AI Lead.
The 5-step framework for AI process transformation
Take one real process to a working prototype in a full-day workshop. AI plugins do the heavy lifting at every step — your people challenge, decide and own the result. You leave with the prototype and a method you can run on the rest of your backlog.
Identify candidates
AI screens your pain points and ranks processes on pain, AI fit and effort. You pick the quick wins.
Capture the As-Is
An AI plugin turns process documents and recorded discussions into a one-page process card, including the work that happens in email and Teams.
Reinvent the To-Be
Start from the intent, not today's steps. An AI design plugin proposes a reinvented flow — eliminate, combine, move, parallelise, simplify, then automate — and the team challenges it on the whiteboard. A spec plugin turns the result into a build spec, and the first AI agent is built as a plugin and tested on real cases.
Build the business case
Benefit versus cost in three scenarios, with a clear go/no-go. What the pilot cannot reach yet becomes the integration roadmap.
Pilot and realise value
A 6–12 week pilot on real cases with 3–5 KPIs and human approval where mistakes are costly, then scale, iterate or stop.
Processes reinvented with clients
- Quote-to-cash
Purchase orders checked against quotes and terms before the order is registered.
- Bid management
Customer RFQs turned into a requirement-by-requirement compliance matrix for the bid decision.
- Ticket management
Incoming tickets classified, routed and answered from the knowledge base.
- Customer support
Customer questions answered with grounded draft replies, approved by a person before they are sent.
- Claim management
Incoming claims registered, assessed against the rules and answered with draft replies, with a person approving the decision.
- Invoice handling
Supplier invoices matched against purchase orders, coded to the right account and routed for approval.
- Manuscript review
AI support for the expert review of report manuscripts, before publication.
Afterburner — strategy, data and products
For companies past the basics. Builds pillars A and D.
AI strategy, moat & competence
A sector analysis using 7 Powers, leading to a prioritised roadmap and a competence plan.
Analytics & AI
Your own open analytics stack — database, dashboards and AI on top — instead of locked-in BI.
AI-ready products
An AI innovation process for R&D, and your flagship products assessed against a five-step maturity ladder.
For investors: AI acceleration across a portfolio
The same programme run across several portfolio companies at once, with shared sessions, a monthly community for each company's AI Lead, and maturity tracked per company on the four pillars. This is how I work with Bure Equity.
Start with a talk
Keynotes and board briefings for non-technical audiences: what AI changes in your industry, what to do first, and what to watch out for. Often the first step towards a Firestarter.
Also available as part-time AI Lead or interim AI executive.
Work
Selected work
Bure Equity
AI acceleration across the portfolio (2026)
AI Lead for Bure Equity's portfolio-wide AI programme, designed and run as Firestarter and Afterburner. Eight portfolio companies activated in 2026, with the AI process transformation block run at Allgon, BioLamina, Cavotec and Mycronic. In November 2026 the programme brings the AI Leads from across the portfolio together for the first Bure AI Day.
NCAB
AI workshop for the management team (2026)
A readiness survey of the management team, followed by a hands-on AI workshop for around 13 executives of the Nasdaq-listed PCB company.
SNS
From management workshop to working prototypes (2026)
A full-day workshop for the CEO and management team on AI transformation of internal processes, followed by a prototype workshop where the research leaders built and verified an AI plugin for their own workflow. Ongoing advisory through 2026.
Westan
Board briefing and staff workshop (2026)
An AI briefing for the board of the timber-transport coordinator, followed by a hands-on workshop for around 20 employees, including a custom AI plugin built around their own work.
SD Worx
Workshops and talks for HR and payroll (2025–2026)
Two prompt-engineering workshops and an internal-conference keynote for SD Worx Sweden, followed by a keynote for HR and payroll leaders at the Spark Days customer conference in November 2026.
How I work
How I work
Start from the people in the room.
Every engagement begins with a short readiness survey of the actual participants; the results open the first session.
Build, don't just advise.
Participants leave with something working — a prototype, a plugin, a plan — built on their own processes and data.
Make it stick.
An AI Sponsor and an AI Lead in every company, and 30-60-90 follow-ups, so training turns into change.
Governance from day one.
Security, data handling and the EU AI Act are part of the programme, not an afterthought.
Independent and fact-based.
Advice grounded in evidence and your situation, not in vendor pitches. I work with the tools you have — Claude, Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT.
About
I'm Gunnar Strandberg, an independent AI strategy advisor based in Stockholm. I combine more than 20 years of strategy and transformation work with hands-on agentic AI engineering. My background includes Ericsson's internal strategy consultancy, Northstream, and my own firm since 2010. I design and build AI systems myself, from multi-agent business-intelligence solutions to connectors that bring company data into AI assistants. I also co-founded the Swedish chapter of the Agentics Foundation, a non-profit community for agentic AI builders.
- M.Sc. Electrical Engineering, KTH
- Ericsson Strategic Program Practice
- Northstream
- Deep Learning Specialization, DeepLearning.AI
- Co-founder, Agentics Foundation Sweden
Questions & answers
Questions before we start
Who does Gunnar Strandberg help with AI?
Gunnar Strandberg is an independent AI strategy advisor based in Stockholm. Through Gunnar Strandberg AB, he helps investors, leadership teams and boards with AI strategy, process transformation, capability building and AI in products.
About GunnarWhat is the difference between Firestarter and Afterburner?
Firestarter builds practical AI skills, process transformation, governance and adoption. Afterburner is for companies past the basics and focuses on AI strategy, analytics and AI-ready products. Companies choose the domain, blocks and pace.
Explore the programmesWhat happens in an AI process transformation workshop?
The full-day signature workshop takes one real process to a working prototype. AI plugins do the heavy lifting at each of the five steps: candidate selection, capturing the current process, reinventing it and specifying the build, the business case and a pilot plan. Processes reinvented with clients include quote-to-cash, bid management, ticket management, customer support, claim management, invoice handling and manuscript review. The subsequent pilot runs for 6–12 weeks with 3–5 KPIs.
See the five-step frameworkCan the programme run across several portfolio companies?
Yes. The programme can run across several companies with shared sessions, a monthly community for each company's AI Lead and maturity tracked across four pillars. This is the model Gunnar uses with Bure Equity.
See selected workAre the AI workshops on site or online?
Firestarter blocks run on site or online. The LLM basics block usually lasts three hours. Process transformation is a full-day workshop; the governance and adoption blocks are three hours each. Three monthly follow-ups with the AI Sponsor and AI Lead support implementation.
See formats and durationsHow do we start working together?
Book a 15-minute intro call or meet for coffee in Stockholm. An engagement starts with an agreed domain, an AI Sponsor, an AI Lead and a short readiness survey of the participants. References are available on request.
Book a 15-minute intro callContact
Let's talk
Book a 15-minute intro call, or meet for coffee in Stockholm. References are available on request.
gunnar@gunnarstrandberg.com+46 735 25 06 25LinkedIn