Description In this episode of the podcast, we're joined by Magnus Hazell, Product Director at Aira Group, and Jesse Kinnunen from AWS. They delve into Aira Group's bold mission to decarbonize 5 million homes across Europe by disrupting the traditional energy market with heat pumps, an established technology. Magnus highlights their aggressive growth, high ambition, and the utilization of AI and data to innovate and develop better products for customers. The conversation covers the vision for Europe's energy market, emphasizing electrification and smart systems to manage volatile energy access. They also discuss the challenges of scaling a deep tech company across multiple European markets, including their unique vertical integration approach that encompasses installers, manufacturing, and customer care throughout the product lifecycle. The importance of a robust data infrastructure and the role of reinforcement learning AI in Aira's smart energy system, supported by AWS technology for IoT and backend, are also key topics.

On the mic today: Anna Almen, CTO at Infront, and Marcela Cazacu Alotleh from AWS. Infront, a leading European fintech company with over 35 years of history, specializes in wealth management and trading. Anna explains how Infront leverages its deep experience and structured historical data to provide advantages to its customers, focusing on data consolidation and seamless integrations within their toolchain. The conversation delves into the challenges of scaling a platform that supports portfolio management, risk analysis, and trading across diverse user needs, emphasizing a common set of tools sharing a single data universe. Anna shares her data-driven leadership style, balancing strategic vision with day-to-day demands, and fostering innovation through fast iterations and real-world testing in a conservative industry. They also discuss the significant impact of Generative AI on the financial industry, enabling personalized and faster advisory and enhancing quantum analytics. The episode touches on the risks and opportunities of AI in finance, highlighting that AI is a tool to power, not replace, human decision-making, especially in unpredictable "black swan" events.

This time, we sit down with Simon Skoog, Chief AI Officer at Apotea, and AWS’s David Alele. Apotea, Sweden's leading online pharmacy, maintains its reputation through a core strategy of fast deliveries, low prices, and free delivery, achieved largely through high automation. Simon discusses how Apotea builds its tech infrastructure for future scalability and the dynamic partnership with AWS for cloud services and expert consultation. A unique aspect highlighted is Simon's approach to leading AI teams as a non-technical leader, focusing on strategy, people, and removing organizational "noise" by positioning the AI team as an internal startup directly under the CEO. The episode details Apotea's strategy of prioritizing "safe wins" over "quick wins" for AI projects, such as their successful implementation of product recommendations that significantly boosted conversion rates. They also explore the vast opportunities of Generative AI for internal efficiency (developer tools) and customer-facing applications (chatbots), while maintaining caution on AI-generated advice due to the paramount importance of customer trust.