How Kommunkartan, Designed by Datastory for AI Sweden, Maps AI Initiatives Across Swedish Municipalities

Discover Kommunkartan, an interactive map by Datastory and AI Sweden, providing a visual overview of AI initiatives across Swedish municipalities. Explore where AI is advancing and uncover collaboration opportunities across Sweden’s public sector.

AI technology is playing an increasingly important role within the public sector, with almost all 290 municipalities in Sweden already integrating AI initiatives into their daily operations. Despite this progress, a comprehensive overview of AI development across Sweden’s counties has been lacking, even though the need for such an overview has been evident for some time.

Challenge

While AI initiatives are being implemented across Sweden’s municipalities, there has been no unified view of these efforts, making knowledge sharing and collaboration between municipalities difficult. There is a significant need for a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of where AI initiatives are taking place, within which areas they are involved, and what value they aim to deliver—information that is essential for advancing AI development within the public sector.

Solution

To address this gap, AI Sweden, in collaboration with Dcipher Analytics, carried out a national data mapping of AI initiatives across Swedish municipalities. To further enhance knowledge sharing and accessibility, AI Sweden commissioned Datastory to design and develop Kommunkartan.

”The challenge with Kommunkartan was that some municipalities are so small geographically that they wouldn’t be visible on a standard map without zooming in a lot. To address this, we needed a map that represented municipalities by the number of initiatives rather than by physical size while preserving some geographical context. The solution was to use a Dorling map.” says Sara, Project Manager at Datastory.

A Dorling map is a type of cartogram where geographical regions are shown as circles, with each circle’s size representing a specific variable—in this case, the number of initiatives. This approach ensures that smaller municipalities are just as easy to find as larger ones.

This clear, intuitive, and easily shareable data visualization allows users to effortlessly access information about AI initiatives in their municipality and nearby areas, while also providing a straightforward view of the specific focus areas of each initiative

Results

Kommunkartan, developed by Datastory, provides not only a visual overview of AI initiatives but also highlights areas of high interest and activity. The map helps municipalities detect potential collaboration opportunities.

Thanks to Kommunkartan’s visual clarity, it is evident that municipalities are actively engaged in AI, with three municipalities currently standing out in particular for their AI initiatives. To see who these are, click here.

“We know that many AI projects are underway across the country, but this is the first time we have a comprehensive overview. Many municipalities are working on similar projects and the risk is that these initiatives may stay at the pilot stage. We need to address key challenges—such as legal frameworks and shared infrastructure—and focus on spreading knowledge from more experienced municipalities to those that are at the beginning of their AI journey"

Anders Hagström, Head of AI Adoption Public Sector, AI Sweden