A culture of experimentation enables real value from AI

Ai4Value has collaborated with the City of Helsinki’s Kokeilukiihdyttämö (“experimentation accelerator”) programme for several years as a trusted delivery partner. In the most recent campaign, we worked with the city’s teams to design and run two practical AI experiments: an AI‑assisted translation tool that takes cultural nuances into account, and a chat solution with a local language model based filter for removing personal data before sending queries to the cloud. The overall goal of the campaign was to improve city’s services and strengthen the safe, responsible use of AI in everyday work.

A SOLID culture of experimentation helps direct investments

Our long-term involvement in Kokeilukiihdyttämö has shown that the greatest value of experimentation comes from shared learning: understanding where AI genuinely adds benefit and where it does not. The programme provides city employees with a safe, supported environment to test new ideas quickly and in a controlled way.
It’s an approach we also recommend to organisations and companies: well‑designed experiments help direct investments wisely and avoid costly missteps.

Experiment 1: Translation tool to support city’s multilingual communication needs

Together with the team, we developed an AI‑assisted translation tool that recognises cultural nuances and linguistic tone. The aim was not to produce perfect automatic translations, but to ease the work of communication professionals and make multilingual content creation smoother by:

  • improving translation quality and accessibility through better recognition of cultural nuances
  • reducing manual workload by generating multilingual draft translations automatically

Experiment 2: Local language model for safe handling of personal data

The second experiment examined whether language models can be safely used in environments where personal data must be protected. Cloud‑based models pose limitations, but could a local approach offer a secure alternative?

In this trial, we built a chat tool with a locally operating language model filter that anonymises personal data before a query is sent to the cloud. Employees can interact with the chat naturally, while the protection mechanism works quietly in the background, thus contributing both to usability and compliance.

Let’s learn together!

Kokeilukiihdyttämö’s strength lies in open collaboration and rapid learning. City experts bring deep understanding of everyday operational needs, and Ai4Value complements this with hands‑on AI expertise and realistic assessments instead of hype thus allowing customer to put focus where AI truly makes sense.

We support organisations that want to:

  • test AI in a low‑risk, controlled way
  • understand potential benefits better before making major investments
  • identify where AI genuinely helps and where it does not

👉 Get in touch if you’d like to discuss the outcomes of these experiments or explore whether a similar approach could benefit your organisation.