Advisory

The first effect of AI is cheaper work. The second and third rewrite business models. I help leaders see those effects early, and build the new models they open.

I lead AI and robotics at a stealth energy company and work with a few other stealth ventures adjacent to AI, energy and healthcare. Before that, eight years at SEB working on the future of finance. I keep only a few engagements at a time.

Three orders of effect

First order

A task gets cheaper

An agent answers the customer. A model drafts the part. A robot walks the inspection round.

Everyone sees this one. It is where most AI plans stop.

Second order

The economics move

Pricing shifts from seats to outcomes. Moats shift from features to trust, data rights and distribution.

The bottleneck moves too: from intelligence to energy, and to whoever is allowed to sign off.

Third order

The market reorganises

Customers send agents to shop and transact for them, so the interface matters less and trust matters more. New intermediaries appear to verify agents. Field work becomes a fleet you can buy as a service.

This is where the new companies get built.

Every business model carries workarounds for intelligence that used to be expensive. The useful question is which parts of yours, and what you can build once they are gone.

Five ways to work together

1. AI and your business model

"What does AI change in how we make money, and what can we build next?"

For boards, CEOs and strategy teams.

We map the three orders of effect onto your business: what gets cheaper, where margin and moats move, and which new models open up.

What you get:

  • The map, in plain words, with what to act on first
  • The new models worth building, and the ones to leave
  • The questions worth asking management

As a working session with a short pre-read, or a review before your strategy day. I also take a small number of board and advisory board seats.

Email about your business model

2. AI across your portfolio

"Which of our companies does AI make stronger, and which does it unbundle?"

For investors with many companies in the portfolio, and the startups they back.

We map the three orders of effect across the whole portfolio: where AI lifts margins, where it puts a business model at risk, and where a new company should exist. Then your founders get practical help to act on it.

What you get:

  • A portfolio map: stronger, at risk, and new openings
  • Office hours and a practical playbook for your founders
  • A technical read on new AI deals before you invest

I do not review companies that compete with my employers, and I say so at first contact.

Email about your portfolio

3. The future of finance with agents

"What happens to our business when customers act through agents?"

For banks, fintechs, payment companies and insurers.

Agents that hold mandates, compare providers and transact with each other change who owns the customer relationship. We find where your model gains, where it gets unbundled, and which products to build first, with controls your risk team will sign. Built on eight years at SEB, from the NLP platform to agentic AI in 2022 and strategy on the future of finance.

What you get:

  • Where agents create value in your model, and where they take it
  • The products and partnerships to build first
  • A path to production your risk team can sign
Email about finance and agents

4. Physical AI and energy

"What business models open when AI starts moving atoms?"

For investors and industrial companies.

Digital twins, text to CAD and robots turn design and field work into software, and AI's appetite for power turns energy into its bottleneck. We find the models that open up, and test whether a system will work in the field. You get the view of someone building it right now.

What you get:

  • The business models that open in your industry
  • A technical read on a system, its data and its team
  • The questions to take into your next meeting

I do not review companies that compete with my employers, and I say so at first contact.

Email about physical AI

5. Build the new model

"How do we get from the map to a first product?"

For founders and teams who want senior technical and product judgement for a stretch.

From the idea to a first version people use: the architecture, the key hire, the product bet, and a pilot that reaches production.

What you get:

  • A sounding board for the big technical and product calls
  • A first version shaped for production, not a demo
  • A scope we agree together, in writing
Tell me what you are building

How it works

1. You send a few lines

Your business, and the AI question on your mind.

2. I reply

Yes, no, or a better person for it.

3. A free 30 minute call

We scope it together.

4. Scope and fee in writing

A fixed scope and fee, agreed in writing before any work starts. Fees on request.

Good fit

Leaders who sense that AI changes more than their costs. A bank working out what agents mean for its customer relationship. A board testing its strategy before the next planning cycle. An investor asking which companies in the portfolio AI makes stronger. An industrial company looking for the models that open when AI starts moving atoms.

If what you need is a full delivery team, I will gladly point you to someone better suited.

What the thinking is built on

Early to every wave of AI, and written up as I go.

Early to every wave

Real-time ML since 2016. NLP and NLU in 2017, speech to text for Swedish in 2018. Agentic AI in 2022. Physical AI now.

See the full story

The future of finance

Eight years at SEB: I architected and led the streaming platform, started the NLP platform, and worked on agentic development and the future of finance.

Watch the SEB talk

Second order, in writing

The Deployment Decade: why the value of AI arrives in deployment, and why the next ten years reward the people who are good at the last mile.

Read: The Deployment Decade

Now, moving atoms

AI and robotics for energy in the field: digital twins, text to CAD and autonomous manipulation.

Read: When the model moves something

Speaking and mentorship

Speaking

Talks for boards, banks, investors and builders. The topics I enjoy most:

  • The second and third order effects of AI
  • The future of finance with agents
  • When AI starts moving atoms

I presented "The streaming journey of SEB" in October 2021: watch the talk on Confluent. In person in Stockholm, remote anywhere.

Email about a talk

Mentorship mostly free

For students and people early in their careers who are trying to work out what AI actually does to their job. Not the headlines, the real version: which skills compound now, which ones just got cheap, and how to be the person who gets more valuable because of AI rather than less.

The same questions keep arriving, so I would rather answer them properly than fifty times over. I keep most of this free. I have a limited number of slots and I am honest when they are gone.

I keep a few hours on Saturdays for this. How to ask: one email, a few lines on where you are and where you are trying to get to.

Ask for a slot
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