Datatjenesten has witnessed and adapted to the rapid changes in technology over four decades, expanding its services and expertise to meet the diverse needs of its customers. Today, the IT company leverages AI to optimize its cloud infrastructure, improve its cybersecurity, automate its workflows, and provide tailored solutions to its customers across various industries from Båtsfjord to Shanghai.
Datatjenesten is a complete service provider of IT and communication services to the corporate market, delivering everything from the phone in your pocket to your cloud-based server needs – and everything in between. Its main market is between Halden and Oslo, but as a solid supplier with local roots for over 40 years, Datatjenesten’s customer base has gradually extended to all corners of the world. Today, they have 21 highly motivated employees, with the ownership structure distributed among most of them. “It’s a model we strongly believe in, and it fosters both engagement and pride in the workplace”, says Karl Jørgen Weme, CTO of Datatjenesten.
We started our company back in 1982 and have recently celebrated 40 years in the industry. It is something we are very proud of. 40 years is a long time in any industry and it wasn’t as obvious back then what lay ahead of us – and the tech oriented world we live in today. We have adopted through the years, adding more services and competence and is today a 40-something in our prime.
Karl Jørgen Weme, CTO, Datatjenesten
Datatjenesten is divided into four departments: Sales, ERP, Support, and Technical. They have expertise in a variety of services and needs that their customers require, often taking on the role of customers’ IT department to build close relationships and understand their challenges and desires.
How do you use AI in the company?
– At Datatjenesten, we utilize off the shelf AI powered tools in a wide range of applications. We have for a long time benefited from built-in AI capabilities in our IT security offerings, which looks for pattern recognition for suspicious behavior of users, abnormal activity from applications and network traffic. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) help us accelerate and automate the quick decision-making process needed to identify and respond to advanced cyber threats. In 2023, we started using ChatGPT based tools such as Copilot, and they have made a difference in how we work. Copilot helps us draft scripts that we can use in our IT management tools, such as automating tasks, troubleshooting issues, or gathering data. It saves us a lot of time and effort of tedious tasks.
Tell about a recent AI-related success story from your company or an exciting project you are working on.
– With the release of Copilot for Microsoft 365 in Norway, we started an internal project to learn how this application works, so we can both use it ourselves and be positioned to help our customers. Instead of exclusively using its own dataset or publicly available information, Copilot can utilize our own data in Microsoft 365. This means it will be able to use your emails, documents and more to help you be productive.
Because of this, we’ve learned a lot about how we need to assess and confirm if our own data is structured in good way and that access permissions to all data is sufficient. Once data structuring is ready, it’s like having a very skilled secretary or co-worker. It can write documents for you, do research, brainstorm with you and more. I was really impressed with the Copilot for Microsoft 365 feature in Microsoft Teams. For instance, the digital meeting solution, where this tool can transcribe everything that is said during a meeting. Then later it can make meeting notes and summarize them for you. Also, if you ask Copilot questions about the meeting, and it will make great conclusions about what was said and concluded.
What goals does the company have for the future?
– As CTO, I don’t have any plan to create or implement AI on our own. But we will continue to make strategic decisions where we move our IT systems and processes to modern tools where we can make use of software developers who apply AI to those tools or specific tasks. As a partner for many great developing companies, I feel we are in a good position.
Our slogan says a lot about who we are: “Big enough to deliver, small enough to care.”
Karl Jørgen Weme, CTO, Datatjenesten
Why have you chosen to sponsor the AI+ conference?
– Datatjenesten has been working with IT systems for a long time, gradually implementing AI. Even before it was “thing”. AI has long made its way into both ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software and generally within standard office support, and what we have seen so far barely scratch the surface of what to come and expect in the future. Datatjenesten serves corporate clients across a wide range of industries, but they all have in common the need for support regarding the use of IT systems and how to interact with AI functionality in those systems. We often take on the role of our customer’s IT department.
Living and working so close to one of Norway’s most powerful AI competency environments, it was exciting to become a member of the Cluster for Applied AI. We see the value of having this environment available not least because it opens for exploring new business opportunities. At the AI+ conference, we have a platform that strongly contributes to the development of AI for the benefit of us and our customers, and therefore, we have chosen to contribute sponsor funds to this event in 2024.
Facts about the company:
- Name of business: Datatjenesten AS
- Number of employees: 21
- Location: Halden
- Industry: IT
- Briefly about the product/service: Complete IT- and communication provider for businesses
Datatjenesten is a silver sponsor at AI+ 2024.