Icosagen examines internal AI adoption through Digital Innovation Industry Project course

Estonian biotechnology company Icosagen took part in the Digital Innovation Industry Project course to address a practical internal challenge: improving the adoption of artificial intelligence within the organisation. The collaboration brought together students and company experts to explore how AI tools are introduced, communicated, and used in a real corporate environment.

According to Immanuel Sanka, a Bioinformatician at Icosagen, the decision to participate was driven by a desire to combine internal development with student learning. “We joined the Digital Innovation Industry Project to address an internal challenge: the company’s AI implementation. By starting with an internal research study, we hoped the course would benefit both the company and the students by tackling real-world problems,” Sanka said. Icosagen has already piloted a secure internal AI platform that enables employees to interact with AI technologies. However, adoption levels remained lower than expected.

At the outset of the project, Icosagen identified two key objectives. The first was to gather insights from employees across the organisation to explore how the company’s AI strategy could be improved. The second was to assess internal communication practices, particularly how teams currently use AI in their daily work. The company proposed a project in which students were tasked with diagnosing and improving the internal AI platform. “By involving students, we hoped to uncover the root causes of low usage,” Sanka explained. “We also wanted to collect feedback from employees who already use AI in their day-to-day work, so we could identify a wider range of pain points and ideas.”

One point of feedback that stood out to the students was the employees describing their large amount of paperwork. Thus, putting their theoretical knowledge to work, the team asked themselves “How might we drastically reduce the time it takes to create complex, template-based documents like SOPs, qualifications, and presentations?” and created an AI solution that creates and organises templates the employees need on a daily basis.

As the DIIP course focuses on producing a prototype rather than a final product, Icosagen evaluated the project based on the clarity and usefulness of the outcomes. The company reports that the results were highly valuable. “The work helped us pinpoint the most critical pain point that we intend to address in the near future,” said Sanka.

Several ideas generated during the project have already been implemented within the organisation, while others are planned for later this year. For Icosagen, the collaboration demonstrated the value of working with students not only on technical solutions, but also on understanding organisational processes and user behaviour.

We invite companies and organisations to present their ideas for the Digital Innovation Industry Project course by 15 February. If interested, contact Morten Merila ([email protected])