During the pandemic, Estonia’s investment promotion agency (IPA) unveiled various tools, including a chatbot and an e-advisor, to keep the investment process moving. Now, its suite of tools makes it a first mover in an industry typically adverse to digital disruption.

Originally launched in 2020 to help with providing citizens with information about the Covid-19 pandemic, chatbot Suve now serves as a point of contact with prospective investors. 

Another tool, e-advisor Eia, came into its own when the borders were closed as it offered online site visits. It works as an investment advisor that creates value propositions, detailing where, how and in which sectors to invest in Estonia. 

Joonas Vänto, director of Invest Estonia, tells fDi that “our main motto is to find the best tools that use automation that save energy and time for our staff”.

“We adapted so quickly because digital tools [like Eia] had been developed before the pandemic,” he says. “We just sped up the process of using them for our clients.”

For the most part, Invest Estonia uses artificial intelligence (AI) in the promotion and attraction parts of an investor’s journey. Aside from its proprietary tools, the agency also uses AI in databases tracking companies and in tailored marketing campaigns to specific investors.

“The impact has been felt across all criteria,” Mr Vänto explains, as the agency has been able to work through more projects with the help of AI. “We can prioritise projects, because Eia helps us to see into the projects and understand how valuable they are.” 

Through Eia, prospective investors can input the criteria that are the most interesting or necessary for them, whether that is how mature a particular sector is in Estonia, the size of the project they are looking at or the taxation system. 

“We know so much before we talk to the investor and because of that data we can delegate to certain members of our team, which saves time in what would have been an initial meeting,” he says. “We can bring some Estonian stakeholders to the first meeting, for example.”

The upshot of this has been that the agency has been able to prioritise bigger and better projects, according to Mr Vänto. Last year, Invest Estonia secured €351m in foreign direct investment (FDI) — its biggest number to date, according to its own figures. 

This included an investment from Canadian rare earth processing company Neo Performance Materials (NPM). However, when contacted by fDi, NPM said it did not encounter any of the AI tools touted by the IPA.

Estonian exceptionalism 

Estonia is no stranger to digitalisation. The automation of investment promotion is one of three Estonian projects to make it into Unesco’s International Research Centre in Artificial Intelligence’s top 100 AI projects in 2022.

“The reason why digitisation is so well developed in Estonia is to give us an edge over the competition,” Mr Vänto says. “We can never compete with big countries, whose budgets are way bigger for IPAs or for incentives. But we can always be more personable and [pre-empt] what others are going to do.”

When asked whether the agency is developing AI tools to assist with aftercare functions too, Kata Varblane, deputy director of marketing and international relations at Invest Estonia, says that the agency is “looking into this” but has not come out with anything yet.

As for the ethical considerations attached to the use of AI, Mr Vänto is not concerned that it poses any real threat. 

“The main goal is to work through more projects. We need more FDI into Estonia. The goal is definitely not to reduce staff numbers,” he insists.

E-advisor Eia has solved roughly 1500 enquiries and saved 1000 working hours per year since it was launched in 2020, according to Invest Estonia data.

This is the first in a series on the uses of AI in investment promotion. Is your agency deploying AI to attract investment? Get in touch at seth.ofarrell@ft.com