From experimentation to learnings – Ai4Value takes part in City of Helsinki’s Kokeilukiihdyttämö campaign

City of Helsinki has created and launched a unique Kokeilukiihdyttämö (“experiment accelerator”) campaign, which promotes a culture of experimentation. Once again the campaign is in full swing. Preparations for the 2025 experiments began already in the spring, and the experiments themselves were launched at the kick-off on August 29 in an enthusiastic atmosphere. This year’s experiments explore how artificial intelligence and data ecosystems can be harnessed to renew the city’s services. The experiments are carried out during autumn 2025, and the results presented at the closing seminar in January 2026.

Ai4Value is participating in two Kokeilukiihdyttämö pilots:

  • A local, workstation-based language model for filtering personal data before sending it to a cloud-based language model. The experiment tests if and how a local language model could be used to protect personal data, thereby improving data privacy. In addition to evaluating the model’s effectiveness, the experiment also tests the Cursor coding assistant.
  • Engaging multilingual communities more broadly in Malmitalo’s activities. This experiment explores ways to reach multilingual communities through Malmitalo’s communications. It will also consider effective channels for reaching target audiences and agile methods for creating communication materials in different languages. The goal is to enable direct communication in people’s own languages, within the channels they already use naturally.

To support the experimenters, two guides are available (in Finnish): the ABC of Experimentation, which provides practical guidance for agile experimentation, and a brand-new handbook on developing with data ecosystems, produced by the Helsinki Data Ecosystems (Hedeko) project. Notably, these guides are freely available to anyone interested, alongside the ABC of Innovation Activities.

At Ai4Value, we are delighted to contribute to culture of experimentation and to collaborate with the City of Helsinki! The lessons learned from the experiments will be published in early 2026 in the Experiment Gallery of Kokeilukiihdyttämö, where previous pilots from the campaign can also be explored.

More information about this year’s campaign can be found in the City of Helsinki’s article (in Finnish).