Fueling Interdisciplinary Innovation With AI: Volvo’s Anders Sjögren

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (0:02)
How does one car maker use AI to bring together all of the complex systems required to engineer a safe and high-performing vehicle? Find out on today's episode.

**Anders Sjögren** (0:14)
I'm Anders Sjögren from Volvo Cars, and you're listening to Me, Myself, and AI.

**Sam Ransbotham** (0:21)
Welcome to Me, Myself, and AI, a podcast on artificial intelligence and business. Each episode, we introduce you to someone innovating with AI.
I'm Sam Ransbotham, Professor of Analytics at Boston College. I'm also the AI and Business Strategy guest editor at MIT Sloan Management Review.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (0:39)
And I'm Shervin Khodabandeh, senior partner with BCG and one of the leaders of our AI business. Together, MIT Smr and BCG have been researching and publishing on AI since 2017, interviewing hundreds of practitioners and surveying thousands of companies on what it takes to build and to deploy and scale AI capabilities and really transform the way organizations operate.
Today, Sam and I are delighted to be joined by Anders Sjögren, senior technical leader, data analytics and AI enabled engineering at Volvo Cars. Let's get started. Anders, welcome to the show.

**Anders Sjögren** (1:19)
Thank you.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (1:21)
So tell us a little bit about your role at Volvo Cars.

**Anders Sjögren** (1:24)
I'm a senior technical leader in data analytics and AI in the engineering part. So that's the R&D. So essentially, what comes in is a wish for a car. And what comes out is drawings and code, essentially.
In that area, there is, of course, a lot of possibilities for data analytics and AI, both during the development process and also as part of the actual functions in the car. So intelligent functions and personalized functions and so on. So my purpose here is really to make sure that we get the value that we can through data analytics and AI.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (2:06)
Is it the AI and data analytics that goes into the car, like the sensors and all kinds of intelligent devices in the car that makes driving safer and more interactive and things like that? Or is it also customer acquisition and dealer network and all kinds of data analytics to run a business of making and selling cars?

**Anders Sjögren** (2:28)
Yes, so, I mean, all of those apply to Volvo Cars, but the part that I'm really active in is more in the part of the making of the car.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:37)
I think that's a great point, because when most people think about cars and artificial intelligence, I think they immediately jump to this idea of fully self-driving cars. And what you're pointing out is how much other stuff that there is going on, and even in the production of cars that can benefit from artificial intelligence. You know, I think perhaps everyone's frustrated that we don't have fully automated cars now, but there's so much going on behind the scenes that people don't get a chance to see. What are some examples of the ways that you're using artificial intelligence in that production process?

**Anders Sjögren** (3:13)
If we take a little bit of a step back, the goal of Volvo Cars is really to give people the freedom to move in a personal, sustainable, and safe way.
If we start with personal, then it's really critical that we understand you and make you feel special as a customer or as someone in the car. And there, of course, it has to do with starting with the sensors and then really interpreting those values. That can be cameras, different types of steering input. Another area is definitely sustainability. AI is being used there to make sure that we have as lightweight parts as possible. So using AI, one can, for example, get mechanical parts with the same strength and those kind of properties, but with much lower weight and less material that's being used.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (4:10)
In the design process you're talking about, right, as engineers consider all the different permutations of parts.

**Anders Sjögren** (4:16)
In the design process, yes, exactly. That's really the essence of AI, I think, in lots of engineering activities, is that we go from manually deciding first what we want to do, but then actually performing all the different steps. That's the current way of doing it, while in the AI era it's much more about deciding and describing what are the aspects I want to reach to, what are the things I want to optimize, and what are maybe the boundary conditions. Then the AI helps you get there. In the context of the mechanical parts, you might say, these are the attachment points, these are the strength and stiffness properties I want. Give me the part with those properties, but be it as light as possible. And also, of course, possible to produce.