Over 250 AI projects in two years – Results and next steps for the Generative AI campaign

Business Finland’s Generative AI Campaign, launched in May 2024, ended in June 2026. Now, it is a good time to look back and consider the impact the campaign has had.

When launching the campaign, we set the following objectives:

•  Accelerate innovations based on generative AI
• Improve the quality of funding applications related to generative AI and increase the amount of funding
• Promote and enable the development of expertise related to generative AI
• Strengthen the overall development of the AI ecosystem in Finland

When assessing the impact, it is worth noting that approximately EUR 70 million in funding has been granted within the campaign’s runtime – more than twice the original target. Some RDI project funding applications activated during the campaign are still under evaluation, so the total funding amount is estimated to increase by around EUR 10 million.

In particular, the Proof of Concept (PoC) funding call, which was launched as part of the campaign, was successful and responded well to the needs of companies inspired by the opportunities offered by AI. Sparring discussions between companies and Business Finland prior to submitting applications played an important role in the PoC funding call. Over the past two years, the campaign team has held discussions on innovation, research and development projects with more than 500 companies. To this date, around 250 projects have received funding.

The campaign reached more than 1,700 people

Enabling peer learning and networking played a major role in the campaign. The campaign kicked off with a launch event in May 2024, organized together with AI Finland. Peer learning was also supported through the GenAI Forum event series (H1/2025, H2/2025, 2026), where we aimed to inspire participants through presentations of AI projects funded by Business Finland. Networking between companies, research institutes and other ecosystem actors was at the heart of the GenAI Forum events.

The two-year campaign also included numerous webinars as well as activation and information events. In total, more than 1,700 people participated in the activities.

The campaign did not operate in isolation. Collaboration networks provided important support, both across Business Finland’s different programs and with partners such as the aforementioned AI Finland and others. Jointly organized events, studies, and reports, created broader impact in Finland’s AI ecosystem than Business Finland could have achieved alone.

More information about the events can be found via the following links:

• Webinar recordings
• Event materials

As the campaign came to an end, we surveyed our customers’ views on its impact. A customer satisfaction score of 4.4/5.0 shows that the services and activities offered by the campaign were considered valuable and that they supported companies on their journeys with generative AI. The received feedback particularly highlighted the benefits of funding and events for companies.

At this point, we would like to warmly thank everyone for the excellent cooperation and interest in the campaign!

AI as part of Business Finland’s strategy and strategy-driven activities

Business Finland is renewing its programmatic activities as part of the implementation of its new strategy. Going forward, activities will focus long-term on 22 thematic growth areas, within which Business Finland will support Finnish companies’ growth and renewal through various services and activities. Programmatic services will remain as one of the tools, and funding will continue to be granted to strong RDI projects regardless of the programmatic structure.

AI has vital importance both nationally and internationally, and it has been selected as one of Business Finland’s thematic growth areas. Our activation efforts in the field will continue strongly, and we will use the campaign’s experiences and customers’ views to further develop AI-related activities. For example, the positive experiences gained from PoC funding have already been taken into account in developing Business Finland’s operations and offering.

Going forward, we can see that AI development remains important, but it is equally essential across all sectors to ensure, accelerate, and support the adoption of AI and the radical renewal of business with AI. From the perspective of Finland’s and the Finnish ecosystem’s capabilities, we see physical AI as a particularly interesting area of development in the coming years.

AI-related activities will be specified in the coming months as part of the planning of Business Finland’s selected growth areas and the new model for programmatic work.

We will get back to this during the autumn – stay tuned!