Sweco Group empowers its architects and engineers with a timesaving AI assistant built in Azure AI Studio

As one of Europe’s leading architecture and engineering firms, Sweco employs experts who analyze, evaluate, plan, and design solutions that create tomorrow’s sustainable cities and communities. The company conducts more than 150,000 projects each year and relies on the focused disciplines of each of its 22,000-plus consultants to create distinctive solutions for both public and private clients. 

With a focus on digitization and designing sustainable solutions that address urban issues like overcrowding, energy access and efficiency, and transportation accessibility, Sweco has a clear strategy to capture the opportunities of AI to transform client experiences and enhance productivity. “Our vision is to empower all our employees with the ability to use AI in their projects,” says Sigurd Løvfall, Chief Digital Officer at Sweco. 

“Sweco is committed to transforming society so people and the planet can thrive,” adds Nena Roes, Team Manager of Digital Solutions for Urban Projects at Sweco. “But today’s challenges are big, and that requires consultants to have precision in specific areas of expertise while also having the time and space to think creatively and outside of the box.” 

On any given day, Sweco engineers and architects are faced with numerous and complex tasks. These include document creation and analysis, contract oversight, and communication with customers and team members. On top of that, they have to prepare legal paperwork, search for critical regulatory and compliance information, oversee budgets, and more. To free up time for more creative solutions in client projects, the company knew it needed to provide a solution.

“Our aim is to ensure that the know-how of every individual at Sweco makes a difference,’” says David Hunter, Head of AI and Automation at Sweco. “So, with the issues our consultants were facing, we knew AI was the next step. We wanted an AI service to centralize knowledge, automate more tasks, and analyze information—one as good as ChatGPT, but we own it.”

Shah Muhammad, Head of AI Innovation at Sweco, agrees. “Human creativity is key in our business. We wanted to build something that draws from our data and years of global expertise and could scale as we grow and evolve—giving our consultants more time to spare and to focus on Sweco customers.”

Creating a substantive POC within a few hours

Muhammad and Hunter asked Sweco consultants what kinds of automation they’d like the most support with on a day-to-day basis. “For me and many others in the company, that was to analyze large amounts of documents and make those analyses way faster,” says Roes. 

With this information, the team began mapping a plan for digitizing and automating documentation creation and analysis, especially contracts and other documents related to legal processes, as well as ways to enhance search capabilities to help consultants easily access the information they need—when they need it. Consultants also requested the ability to easily translate documents in other languages to users’ native languages.

“We are a company that uses a lot of Microsoft products, and we trust Microsoft for its security, compliance, and leadership in generative AI,” says Hunter. “It was natural for us to team up with the Microsoft Customer Success Unit to explore Azure AI Studio to get most value of the features.” Azure AI Studio was seamlessly incorporated into Sweco’s existing systems, enhancing its digital infrastructure, along with Azure AI services, Azure OpenAI Service, and Azure Machine Learning.

Sweco developers found that Azure AI Studio made it easy for them to build generative AI applications. “We really appreciate the one-click deployment of the models in Azure AI Studio and that it makes Azure AI offerings transparent and available to the user,” says Muhammad. “The straightforwardness of these technologies helped us get to SwecoGPT fast.”

With Azure AI Studio, Muhammad developed and deployed an initial version of SwecoGPT to hundreds of employees in one afternoon. “With Azure AI Studio, Shah was able to rapidly develop a proof of concept (POC) to show me how a SwecoGPT could look, operate, and benefit our consultants and our business as a whole. This just showcases the power and scalability of Azure AI Studio,” says Hunter.

The rapid POC also catalyzed quick employee feedback that gave Muhammad the specific information he needed to fine-tune the tool and add additional automations. “With Azure AI Studio, when we get a request for a certain process automation, we can start mapping the process right away,” explains Muhammad. “Through simple coding and logic creation through prompt flow, Azure AI Studio made it easy for us to meet the specific needs of our colleagues.”

In the end, it took Muhammad just two days to build the full logic of SwecoGPT using Azure Machine Learning prompt flow. “Within two weeks of the initial POC, SwecoGPT was complete, and we deployed it. Users started using it the same day and loved it,” recalls Muhammad. 

“The rapid development and adoption of AI tools in Sweco is supported by an agile IT organization, an adaptive business culture, and a strong relationship with Microsoft,” says Stig Bremer, Chief Information Officer at Sweco.

Saving time, inspiring creativity and transformation

Though it’s still in the early days of deployment, nearly half of Sweco’s employees are using SwecoGPT on a regular basis. The company is seeing improvements in process efficiency, time savings, and error reduction, as well as employee satisfaction. “SwecoGPT, it’s like my personal assistant,” says Roes. “It gives me a head start in writing documents, analyzing large piles of documents, even writing emails. It can save me up to two hours or more a day.”

Consultants are also reporting increased productivity from the reduction or elimination of more mundane tasks, along with faster decision-making due to the improved ability to find and share the right documents. They are also better able to discern content through easy language translation. With increased automation, Sweco is furthering its support for sustainable business practices through less paperwork.

“All of this means that I and the other consultants get to spend more time doing what we love and push the solutions that we are creating for our customers to the next level,” says Roes. “In fact, I think with SwecoGPT, we are challenged to hone our expertise even more—which is great for us and our customers.” Sweco plans to use Azure AI Studio for R&D and production purposes to support more internal use cases within specific business areas and locations. It’s also exploring AI services for customers in design, building operations, and sustainability.

“Through our close relationship with Microsoft, the development and implementation of SwecoGPT is an important step in our AI journey,” says Løvfall.

Adds Muhammad, “I can’t wait to see what we’re doing in six months or a year from now. The potential of Azure AI Studio for us—and what we can do with it for our customers—is infinite.”

Find out more about Sweco on LinkedIn and Instagram.