The founder on shadow AI: everyone does it, no one talks about it

Rickard Eriksson is the man who, in 1996, built what became LunarStorm, the world’s first social medium, with millions of users long before Facebook existed. Since then, he and his company have kickstarted AI development for more than 7,000 Scandinavian businesses and public sector organisations, and seen up close what happens when technology arrives before the rules do.

Today, he runs Skräddarsydd AB in Varberg and is the founder behind EuroWork. We sat down to talk about why he built an AI workplace for European organisations, and why he believes the most important feature is the one that shows what an answer costs.

You say that shadow AI is the real problem. What do you mean?

That it’s already being used. At every workplace I visit, there’s someone pasting a draft into ChatGPT to make it look better. Often, there are several people doing it. They do it on their personal login, because that’s what they had, and they do it because they want to get their work done. It’s not defiance, it’s ambition.

The problem is that no one knows what went out. And when no one knows what went out, no one can answer the question when it comes.

Who asks the question?

Sooner or later, someone other than you. A customer wondering where their data ended up. An auditor. A safety representative. Or a journalist, if you’re unlucky. And then it’s not the employee who has to answer, it’s management. Saying "we have a policy" isn’t enough if the policy is a document no one has read and nothing prevents its misuse.

But most places have some kind of rule, don’t they?

Many have a rule that says no. That’s the worst version, because then usage continues but becomes invisible. You’ve moved the problem from being unmanaged to being unmanaged and secret.

I saw this clearly at one place where they had banned AI completely. Everyone still used it. The difference was that now they did it on their phones instead of their work computers, so it wouldn’t show. They had managed to make it just as risky and harder to detect.

And work and private life get mixed up?

Yes, and that’s the part people underestimate. When someone uses their personal account, the work material is in an account the employer doesn’t own. The person changes jobs, and the material goes with them. The person loses their password, and no one can access anything. And in that history, you find both the customer proposal and the question about their child’s school choice, in the same thread, with a provider on the other side of the Atlantic.

No one is acting with ill intent. It’s just what happens when you don’t give people a tool that is their work tool.

So EuroWork is the alternative?

EuroWork is an attempt to make the legal option the easiest one. That’s the whole idea. If the secure way is more complicated than the insecure way, the secure way loses, every time, in every organisation, no matter what the boss said in a meeting.

What specifically is supposed to make it easier?

That it looks like what people are already used to. You write a question, you get an answer. No one should need to take a course to get started. The difference lies in the details: answers are processed in Europe by default, content is never used to train any model, and it’s displayed under every answer so you don’t have to dig through an agreement.

And the cost?

That’s my personal hobbyhorse. No one else shows what an answer costs. You buy a licence, and then it’s quiet, and only the following month does the finance department see a lump sum.

With us, the price is shown before you send the question. A balanced answer from a European model costs a few cents. If you choose a top US model, the same question costs around forty-four cents. There’s nothing wrong with choosing the expensive option, sometimes it’s worth it, but you should know beforehand, not after.

Why do you care so much about that detail?

Because it’s the honest version of what you’re selling. Everyone says they’re transparent. Very few show a number that can be used against them. I want a finance manager to be able to sit with our service and calculate, not guess.

You’re also building an agent mode. Isn’t that the opposite of control?

That’s exactly what I was afraid of. That’s why the default setting is that the AI asks before it does anything. You set a goal, it suggests a step-by-step plan, and you approve one step at a time, seeing which tool will be used and why. Everything ends up in the audit log.

I think that switch is the whole difference between a municipality being allowed to use agents and not being allowed to. The capability exists for everyone now. What’s missing is proof of who said yes.

What’s the hardest part of building this?

Resisting. Every week, there are ten more things that could be built, and nine of them would make the product worse because they’d make it harder to understand. The person who adds everything ends up with something that requires a consultant to get started, and then you’ve built exactly what you wanted to replace.

What do you hope someone will say in a year?

That they stopped wondering about it. That the question "Can I use AI for this?" is no longer asked at their workplace, because the answer is visible in the tool while they work. And that the finance manager knows what it cost, down to the cent.

Final question: what should the person reading this do today?

Ask their colleagues what they actually use. Not in a formal setting, just ask. The answer is usually more than you thought, and it’s always better to know it yourself than to find out from someone else.

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About Rickard Eriksson

Created in 1996 what became LunarStorm, the world’s first social medium, with millions of users years before Facebook started. Together with his company, he has trained and developed AI usage for more than 7,000 Scandinavian businesses and public sector organisations. Today, he runs Skräddarsydd AB in Varberg and is the founder of EuroWork.

The same principle then as now: technology that ordinary people actually use, and look forward to opening every morning. The company behind LunarStorm was called LunarWorks. This project is called EuroWork.

Contact at rickard@eurowork.ai.