Peter Siljerud
Most leadership teams are not short of AI commentary. They are short of conviction about what to do with it. The harder question is which signals warrant a budget shift this year and which are noise dressed up as strategy.
Peter Siljerud is a Swedish futurist and trend analyst who helps organisations turn AI and trend signals into specific strategic decisions.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Peter Siljerud
- Engineering training combined with twenty years in trend analysis and futures work. His AI commentary runs deeper than headline level into how machine learning and neural networks behave, and what that means for deployment risk.
- Author of AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University), with case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus. One of the few futurists with substantive applied work on public-sector AI.
- Co-author of Supertrends (ProSales Institute, English edition 2020), a framework of fifty structural shifts in commercial strategy. The book is built for sales and marketing leaders running real planning cycles.
- Long-running client work with Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom. The LRF programme reached 12,000 people across a two-year external-analysis curriculum.
Biography highlights
- CEO and founder of Futurewise, a Stockholm-based trend research firm operating since 2008
- Author of four books: 100 trender (2011), Bryt normerna (2015), Supertrenderna (2018), and AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023)
- Two books nominated for Marketing Book of the Year by Sveriges Marknadsförbund (Swedish Marketing Federation)
- Named one of Sweden’s most creative people by media group IDG in 2012
- Former future strategist at Kairos Future and world analyst at Intel
- Clients include Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom
Biography
Sweden’s public-sector AI investment sits at around three percent of national AI spending. The figure is small enough to embarrass policymakers and large enough to matter. Peter Siljerud’s 2023 book AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University) is the practical response: case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus, written for the leadership teams making the actual deployment decisions.
That instinct, work backwards from organisational reality, has shaped twenty years of his practice. He trained as a civil engineer before moving into futures work as a strategist at Kairos Future and a world analyst at Intel. Futurewise, the firm he founded in 2008, helps leadership teams turn external-analysis signals into specific budget and capability calls.
The earlier books trace the same arc. 100 trender (2011) was nominated for Sweden’s Marketing Book of the Year and mapped structural shifts hitting Swedish business. Bryt normerna (2015) attacked the assumption that the working day and the employment contract are settled categories. Supertrenderna (2018), co-authored with Henrik Larsson-Broman and Markus Ejenäs of the ProSales Institute, distilled fifty shifts in commercial strategy into operating advice for sales and marketing leaders.
What separates him from the broader futurist circuit is the engineering instinct. The talks press past signal identification into what the audience should do next quarter. AI is treated as a specific technology with specific behavioural patterns that leadership teams need to understand at working level.
Key speaking topics
- Artificial intelligence and generative AI
- Strategic foresight and trend analysis
- Future of work
- Future of sales and marketing
- AI in the public sector
- Consumer behaviour and retail trends
Ideal for
- C-suite and senior leadership teams in Nordic and European businesses making AI investment decisions
- Public-sector leadership in regions, municipalities, and central agencies working out where AI investment pays back
- Heads of marketing, sales, and customer experience facing structural change in how customers buy
- Boards and executive committees in mature industries (real estate, retail, financial services) where trend response is overdue
Audience outcomes
- A clear-eyed view of AI development that goes past press-cycle headlines
- A short list of trends worth genuine board attention this cycle, separated from the noise
- Specific case studies from Nordic public and private sector AI deployments, including Bolagsverket and Hallands sjukhus
- A method for translating external signals into capital and capability decisions
- Ideas they can put into a board paper inside a fortnight
Talks
Why AI has accelerated now, what it actually means in working terms, and where the opportunities and threats sit for organisations preparing to act.
Key takeaways:
- A working sense of why AI has broken through now rather than five years ago
- Examples of substantive AI deployments across industries, with what each one actually built
- The shift in capability that matters for leadership teams now planning the next cycle
Drawn from the 2023 book of the same name (Liber), this talk addresses why Swedish public-sector AI adoption lags the private sector and what specifically to do about it.
Key takeaways:
- Case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus and what each one actually built
- The argument for why public-sector AI investment delivers higher leverage than is commonly assumed
- A starting checklist for agencies and municipalities at the front of their AI journey
A challenge to the inherited assumptions about office hours, the boss-employee contract, and permanent employment that most organisations still operate by even when their workforces have moved past them.
Key takeaways:
- Why the eight-to-five office became a default and where that default is now breaking
- Specific cases of organisations that have rebuilt leadership, recruitment, and innovation around modern work practice
- The argument for why outdated working norms are now a recruitment liability in tight talent markets
Drawn from the 2018 book co-authored with Henrik Larsson-Broman and Markus Ejenäs of the ProSales Institute (English edition published 2020), this talk distils fifty structural shifts in how customers buy.
Key takeaways:
- Why the conventional broadcast model of advertising no longer reaches advertising-cynical buyers
- How the information balance between buyer and seller has reversed in B2B and B2C
- Specific examples of brands building commercial models around contextual and data-driven offers