AI-driven circular business model innovation for sustainable industrial ecosystems

Swedish industry is increasingly shaped by circular economy and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), resulting in significant transformation challenges in how industrial firms and their ecosystem actors can create, deliver, and capture value from circular economy principles.

AI-driven circular business-model innovation (CBMI) offers an unprecedented opportunity to support entirely new ways of doing business, unlocking new sources of value, revenue, and sustainability benefits.

For instance, Swedish manufacturing firms such as ABB and Volvo are investing in digitalization and AI analytics that connect various sensor-enabled machines, collect operational data, and conduct cutting-edge analytics to provide circular solutions such as preventive maintenance and life cycle optimization.

The prime challenge is no longer technology development; it is putting technology to use in concrete business-model applications that make circularity and sustainability gains come to life.

We seek to support this transformation by investigating how industrial manufacturers and members of their ecosystems can design, transform, and align AI-driven circular business models with sustainability.

We draw on the empirical context of Swedish industrial ecosystems and a mixed-methods approach to develop knowledge of AI-driven CBMI transformation processes as well as performance and sustainability effects as well as high-impact academic publications and industry-dissemination events.