Why AI Adoption Fails And How to Fix It

00:00:06 Mark Smith
Welcome to the MVP show. My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills. If you have not checked it out already, I do a YouTube series called How to Become an MVP. The link is in the show notes. With that, Let's get on with the show. Welcome back to the MVP Show. Today, I'm joined by Hannah from Stockholm in Sweden. Hannah is a Microsoft MVP and founder of AI Boost Academy. Hannah, welcome to the show.

00:00:49 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Thank you so much, Mark.

00:00:51 Mark Smith
It's good to have you on. You're doing so many interesting things. I want to uncover things like your bridge model and how does it work and how you came up with it and what you're doing in the whole Copilot space. But before we do, I always like to start with food, family, and fun and what they mean to you.

00:01:07 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Oh, that's such a great question. I love that we start there.So food, oh, one of my favorite topics for sure. I'm actually quite of a biohacker. So like my normal days, I really search for the food that's nutritious and I'm really picky with my food. But then when I have, you know, the opportunity to eat in a really, really nice restaurant, I really love it. I take everything I want. So I'm the mixture between a biohacker and a foodie, I would say, on the food department. If family, oh, my family is everything. I'm married to Edvard, and we have two kids. My son, Philip, is 12, and my daughter, Amanda, is 10. Yeah. And I absolutely love my family. Of course, that's the center. And fun working in AI, I think for me, fun is like balancing, going out in nature. I love hiking, swimming in lakes, in the ocean, horseback riding, skiing in the winter, traveling, things like that. Yeah.

00:02:25 Mark Smith
Nice. It's such a broad range of things and so much to choose from, but I want to talk about biohacking. Tell me, what's your, what's your morning routine typically from what you're going to eat or drink to set your day up from that biohacking point of view?

00:02:48 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Oh, yes, I'll tell you. Please don't think I'm strange or weird or something.

00:02:53 Mark Smith
No, no, no. I'm into this as well. That's why I'm interested.

00:02:56 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, yeah. So for me, I think many of us working, you know, leaned over a laptop or computer. I think it's so important to start the day right. So when I go up, you know, I go up quite early and I stretch a little bit, maybe 10 minutes just to wake up my body. And then my My kids and family wakes up, so we eat breakfast together. And I always eat the same thing. So I eat an omelette of two eggs and some egg whites, and then I eat lots of vegetables. So it's actually a big breakfast, and coffee and tea and water. And then the kids off to school, and my workday starts soon, but I always, always also start my mornings to try to take some natural light. And this has become always like, I have to do it. I have to take a power walk, even though it's raining or no sunshine at all. I just want the fresh air and start my morning like that. And then I come back and I'm fine and I can start the work day.

00:04:07 Mark Smith
I like that. That is very cool. And you can't get a better protein source than eggs, I would agree, in the morning. Do you take any supplements at all?

00:04:22 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, for sure. And I've experimented a lot, let me tell you that, with different kinds of supplements to really nourish my body in different stages of life, right? But I'm kind of now back to basics. So my basics is vitamin D and omega-3, and I have iron actually as a supplement, and it's like a multivitamin with lots of iron. And then I also have, let's see, what's it called? I think it's called MSNM or something. It's good for a lot of things, but yeah, supplements just to support the body and yeah. Protein powder. Protein powder, yeah.

00:05:17 Mark Smith
Three of those I take, and I'm just wondering whether I should add creatine as well as there's a lot of research on creatine being very beneficial, particularly for your brain health, they are finding. So it's something, but I definitely do the omega-3. I do vitamin D. I take a high volume of vitamin D. because I've had psoriasis and it's really good for your blood. Hence why I take a high amount. So it's interesting. It's interesting.

00:05:47 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Have you tried creatine though? Have you tried and how do you react on it or is it?

00:05:52 Mark Smith
On which?

00:05:53 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom}
Creatine.

00:05:54 Mark Smith
No, I haven't tried it yet. I'm keen to try it. The other supplement I do add from time to time is I add a scoop of fiber. So I can get a multi-fiber mix because there's a lot of research showing that fiber is one of those things that is not prevalent enough in our diet.

00:06:16 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, you know, Mark, we have exactly the same interest, I think. 'Cause yeah, I was just reading this morning actually about fiber maxing. People now finally realize how absolutely important fiber is, you know, for your health and for your immune system and your gut system and everything. And people are now trying to fiber max. So like in everything that they put into their body, they wanna have high fiber.

00:06:46 Mark Smith
Yeah, it's so interesting. I live on a property, I've got an acre and a half, and I'm trying to get to the point that 80% of all my food comes directly off my land. So it's fresh vegetables and fruits and things like that, all that I grow myself. So that's important to me as well. So cool, talking to you about this. Anyhow, tell me about what your focus, particularly in the last year or so, has been around AI.What are you focused on? What's working, what's not, where you are, where are you on that journey?

00:07:20 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, so the last actually nine months have been absolutely focused on AI adoption for me. because I come from a different background when it comes to generative AI. And the last nine months, I've been, you know, driving my own company, AI BoostAcademist.com, and we are super focused on being the bridge between access to AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, for example, and actual results adoption. Because as we both know, these two things are very, very different. And some things really need to happen in between those two places. And since I have been for years driving AI adoption, pilots and projects in corporate, I now have that experience and moved over to my own business to work on that. So I've been working with several sectors like energy, infrastructure, industrial, education, and so on, super focused on the adoption side. And it's really busy and it's crazy times. And I absolutely love it. And it's so cool, I think, Mark, that you are also on the adoption side. We could talk for hours about this because we both know that this is so critical and that if you don't put focus on the adoption part, you just leave it at the axis, nothing's going to, you know, it's not going to work. And to actually be able to provide a path for these beautiful Wonderful companies, that really want to make this compliant. They want to make it the best way for the employees, for every single one. And, with high data security and so on, that's amazing. So I absolutely love what I do. Yeah.

00:09:28 Mark Smith
A couple of things. One, you've started your own business nine months ago. That's a big jump and that's a big leap. Tell me how that's been.

00:09:36 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, yes, just in short, terrifying, obviously, And especially, I'll tell you also if you want my crazy background jumping into this. AI career that I have now is definitely not the normal path that I've taken, but learning by doing. And it's just that I was in a position where I was driving in AI transformation and adoption in corporate in an amazing, amazing energy company. And I absolutely loved it.But I also was receiving so many requests from other companies here in Sweden asking me like, because I was communicating a lot on LinkedIn, for example, on stages, sharing our results all the time. So people are very, very interested because we were quite early. So people were interested in contacting me. And then I just, I remember in April 2025 last year, I really, realized that I was working around the clock pretty much, even though I had my AI teams and everything. And I had to decide, okay, should I stay in corporate and do my work there? Or should I actually take this and be able to help so many more people and companies on this journey? And it was just a perfect storm. And maybe you have experienced that too, that I just felt like this is my passion. I can see that I definitely And I can see things that other people can't see yet. And I know I can help them. And so I just had to take the risk to leave, as I said, a company and a position as DNAI lead in energy. And that was a great job in every kind of way and great colleagues and safety and all of this. But I took the leap and I don't regret it for a second. It's exciting and terrifying and very fulfilling, I would say.

00:11:46 Mark Smith
Nice. That is so cool. And you're right, so many people don't take the leap, but I feel it's the future of work. I think there's going to be less dependency in the future on big corporations for roles, but I like the concept of the movie metaphor. There's a movie project, a movie's going to be shot, they bring all the top resources that can support that movie coming to life. And everyone comes together for the project, they deliver the project, and then they all disband and go their separate ways and go into other projects and things like that. And what you've kind of set up is this ability to get exposure across so many different companies as you take them on their AI adoption journey.

00:12:28 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, and it is so right. what used to be, so to speak, a safe position or something is not anymore because everything is changing. And you and I can see that and many people can see that. the future of work is not what it used to be. And being good at your job, it's not what it is. used to be either. Things are changing so fast. So yeah, it was many aspects that made me think that I'm going to do this. I'm going to try.

00:13:01 Mark Smith
I love it. Tell me about the bridge model.

00:13:04 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Yeah, for sure. So just, you know, short to how I came to the bridge model. So I started my career as a journalist. I was working over a decade as a journalist. And this was my, the common thread in my career would say, I would say is, you know, I'm really curious on society and shifts in society.So as a journalist, that was really fulfilling to see how the world is changing with politics and the news and all of this. And then I moved into corporate communication for a few years. And then I started my career in energy at Vattenfall. And there I discovered my passion for new technology, because energy and new technology goes hand in hand, right? And you had lots of traditional AI, of course, but I remember also, and then when I started there, I was actually working on the business side in marketing. But then I remember in the end of 2022, December, I was sitting in my kitchen preparing some Christmas things for my kids, also trying this new thing on my laptop called ChatGPT, right? And I just, I remember the chills I got, because I was working in marketing and I was trying some things like, my God, what is this new tech? And I am not a technical person even, but I could create things from nothing. Things could be created. And from that point, I was thinking like, either this is going to take every kind of job I have, or I just have to master this. So I became obsessed pretty much. I was sitting like three, four hours a day just trying testing from a marketing perspective. And of course, I had to be working in energy, you know, with the data security. This was only, I had to be very, only with public information and all of this. So I had to try to find very many ways around working with generative AI. This is very early, but during that following year, 2023, especially in 2024, I drove and designed pilots on how to use AI tools in a compliant and efficient way to raise internal efficiency and productivity. within marketing, sales, customer experience, and so on. And this was actually so successful. So, well, I got the position of Gen. AI lead for the whole of Attenfall Heat. So I decided, I did, yeah, I designed AI literacy or training programs for cross roles, and I called it AI Heroes Academy, and later I called it AI Champions Academy for, yeah, for 400 people. And during that time, so much things happened, right? Because I had to learn by doing. So I was so, I had to really understand the big problem. All these amazing senior professional people, they have access to Microsoft Copilot, which is and was the recommended tool at Latinfal, but they are not using it. Why? are they not using it? And people, at that time, people were not really talking about it. So I had to sit down, and I remember I did so many interviews with people, and I did surveys, with, as I said, over 400 people. And I came to a list of blockers. So the top 10 blockers and that those blockers, I was thinking, I looked at that list and I thought like, okay, if I can solve this, you know, in some coming way, I have the golden key to adoption and we can skyrocket that, you know, actual use and access of Copilot and we can reach our goals. And I realized by looking at that list of those 10 blockers for all these professionals that This is not about the tech. This is about the people. So we have to start there. And that's the foundation. And just to mention a few of the top blockers, of course, is that they did not know how to use the tool. They didn't know what they were allowed to do. You know, people are very compliant. They do not want to do anything wrong, especially in Sweden. They're very, you know, follow every little law, right? So they were kind of like paralyzed there. They didn't know really what to do and what they could do. Also, they didn't have time. Their schedules were full from morning to afternoon. When would they sit and just learn a link that they were sent by an e-mail? When? So they didn't have the time. So it's very important to make time for them in their schedules and blockers like that. So I took these and I created the bridge method or the start of the bridge method that I refined during the years now, working with many more, of course, up to 800 people now. So the bridge method in a nutshell, it's actually six steps, but three blocks. And the first one is, of course, the foundation. And that is to start with the people. Like, where are they right now? Can we make it, you know, like a work diary, for example? What are they using? Where are their time bottlenecks? Where can we find them? And also, what are their goals? And of course, the blockers and all of this. We start with the people. So that's different ways to do it. And then we have number two is the bridge. and then I really discovered that one really big problem is that a lot of AI training, at least back in the days, was just inspiration. And working in corporate and people coming in their training center, they say, Yeah, you can do this and you can do this. And we sit there and say, Yeah, but we can't do it. You know, like that must be beautiful for a little startup in the US or something. But if you're in Sweden and in a big energy company, well, no, we're not allowed to. So to actually tailor use cases that are relevant and very, very, you know, hands on in their organization and their daily workflows for them, role specific. That's where, you know, people get interested. And they go like, yeah, yeah, I've done the same thing for maybe 30 years, you know, and I expanded my field. But that one, that kind of makes sense to me. I can do the shift now, you know, so to make it super, super relevant for them. And I do it by having them create use cases. We do it together. right?And then the third one is the result. So also, I saw that so much AI adoption was just done by the left hand kind of thing. Like, yeah, we have some trainings here. And I'm like, no, that's not how it works in real business. You have to measure. We have to measure how they are moving. And that was a big problem. How do you measure AI adoption? Well, we have some different KPIs we can follow now. Of course, self-assessmenttests like digital maturity and use of the tool and all of this. But the real beauty comes out when you can measure the use cases, right? So, you know, and just for one number, like when I did one of the pilots with this, we moved a a department from 15% of daily use of the AI tool to 83%. And this was just in six sessions, right? So, yeah, long story short.

00:21:37 Mark Smith
That is so, so compelling. And, you know, to have that impact and that measurable, particularly, measurably show The value that it can create inside a team, I think, is phenomenal. We're almost at time.And my final question to you is, you're right across Microsoft M365 Copilot. What is your favorite go-to feature in it right now? Or what tool are you using? Which part of it are you using more than anything else? to support you in your daily work.

00:22:17 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
I would say copilot notebooks. In Swedish, it's called . And I really love it because I know very many of my, you know, the people I train, they come, they want to create the copilot agents, right? So they always lean towards say, Oh, let's do an agent for this and this and this. And I kind of like, Let me show you what notebooks can do, right? So it's Absolutely amazing, and it's so easy. it's an interactive, hub where you can, instead of, especially if you start from scratch, like you haven't, you don't really know that much about the AI tool yet. to actually start experimenting, instead of having your documents all over the place on SharePoint and all this, you can chat with your projects, you can interact with your projects, you can have Copilot analyze and just using the Copilot notebook, like for yourself or with your team, four or five people, it shifts how you are working. From being in silos, you can now have a common place where you can really chat about, interactive chat with your projects. So I would say that one for an easy, and I love that feature.

00:23:49 Mark Smith
Earlier on, I spent a lot of time in notebooks. You have now inspired me to go back and look at and drill a bit more deeper into it. I really thought you were going to say Cowork was the favorite feature because it is such an amazing tool. But that notebook is really cool. Really cool. I like it.

00:24:08 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
I love your, yeah, of course, you know, there's so many great features and Copilot is so strong. And I say that to every group I start, I usually have six sessions with them, six weeks. And I say, Copilot has never been stronger than now. You are so lucky. We are jumping into something amazing here and Cowork is definitely honestly one of them, yeah.

00:24:28 Mark Smith
Hanna, thank you so much for taking your time to have a chat.

00:24:31 Hanna Radtke Bergstrom
Well, thank you so much. It was my pleasure.

00:24:38 Mark Smith
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Business Application MVP, Mark Smith, otherwise known as the nz365guy. If you like the show and want to be a supporter, check out buymeacoffee.com/nz365guy. Thanks again, and see you next time.