Scaling Customization

European Business: Mr. Salenstedt, Configit strives to help its clients scale customization profitably in the age of AI. How exactly do you achieve that goal?

Johan Salenstedt: More and more manufacturers today offer highly configurable products tailored to the specific needs of their customers. To do so, they rely on enormous amounts of data originating from multiple systems and organizational silos that are often disconnected from one another. Ten years ago, this was far less of a challenge because we had not yet entered the era of mass customization. Today, however, even relatively straightforward products come in countless variations depending on country-specific requirements, customer segments, software configurations, or regulatory considerations. Take hearing aids as an example: frequency requirements vary not only from country to country but, in some cases, even between individual states or regions. At the same time, product lifecycles often span decades – from initial engineering through manufacturing, service, and end of life. Thus, manufacturers need to be confident that their data remains accurate and consistent throughout that entire journey. Our role is to provide a single source of truth from beginning to end.

European Business: Where does AI enter the picture?

Johan Salenstedt: AI is both extraordinarily brilliant and profoundly disruptive. It can process and analyze enormous amounts of data at incredible speed. The challenge, however, is trust. AI can generate highly plausible answers, but manufacturers need certainty. If information is not 100% accurate, they must effectively treat it as 100% wrong. That is why we use AI to extract and organize information from a wide range of documents and data sources. We then apply our proprietary VT technology to validate and verify that information with absolute precision. In essence, AI serves as a probabilistic tool, while our platform delivers a deterministic outcome. What differentiates Configit from other players is our ability to evaluate every possible variant and combination without relying on shortcuts or cut-off conditions, ensuring complete consistency and reliability across the entire product model.

European Business: What are some of the most common use cases where Configit comes into play?

Johan Salenstedt: That has evolved considerably over the past few years. Historically, our customers were primarily some of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, organizations dealing with high volumes, complex products, and extensive product variation. Today, the landscape is much broader. Regulatory requirements are changing faster than ever, while software increasingly defines the functionality of physical products. As a result, the need for accurate configuration management has expanded significantly. Our customer base now ranges from established global manufacturers to disruptive newcomers and startups that are building entirely new products and business models from the ground up. At the same time, AI is accelerating development cycles, which further increases the need for reliable configuration management. Looking ahead, we also expect our solutions to gain traction beyond traditional manufacturing, as many industries are beginning to face similar challenges related to complexity and customization.

European Business: Where do you see the next wave of applications emerging?

Johan Salenstedt: We believe our technology can solve configuration challenges across a wide range of industries. While our roots are firmly in manufacturing, customization is becoming increasingly important in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and life sciences. In those industries, bills of materials are effectively replaced by formulations and recipes, yet the regulatory requirements are even more stringent. Configit’s capabilities are particularly well suited to that environment. At the same time, the rise of personalized medicine will drive unprecedented levels of customization in healthcare. Another area is regulatory compliance. Across many industries, certification and compliance questionnaires now routinely exceed 1,500 items that have traditionally been completed manually. Our solution can handle that complexity with remarkable efficiency. Financial services and insurance also represent attractive opportunities, as insurance products are highly individualized and often extraordinarily complex, making them natural candidates for advanced configuration management. Over the longer term, we want to move beyond configuring individual products and help organizations configure entire systems. Consider a wind farm, for example, where each individual component can be configured in numerous ways. The complexity grows exponentially, and that is precisely the type of challenge our technology is designed to address.