South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Xamk

Image: Xamk image bank

South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Xamk encourages its staff to use artificial intelligence. The Xamk community is bold, curious about new things and about the world. At Xamk, people are willing to experiment and create new knowledge and expertise both locally and internationally. Xamk’s goal is for the entire staff to actively utilize the possibilities offered by AI and, through experimentation, to discover new ways of performing work tasks.

Advanced use of AI brings clear benefits to Xamk’s staff and students, supporting the implementation of Xamk’s strategic core functions.

The Challenge

Xamk operates in Kotka, Kouvola, Mikkeli and Savonlinna. Education and Research, Development and Innovation activities provide Xamk with strong regional and societal impact. Xamk’s organisation employs more than 1,000 professionals from various fields. Xamk has approximately 12,000 students.

The first development phase of Xamk’s AI adoption took place in 2023–2024, during which a decision was made to increase AI competence across the entire staff. The starting point was the intention to make broad use of AI in research, teaching, and administrative and support services, while ensuring that its use remains safe and responsible.

“We wanted to build a safe, comprehensive AI framework that all our staff can utilize, so we began by drafting an AI policy,” says Xamk’s Director of Digitalisation, Jarmo Siltanen.

“Proper guidance for staff on the use of AI is essential both for safety and from a legal perspective. Legislation in this area is developing rapidly, and naturally we must operate within its boundaries. Our AI policy is continually updated and evolves over time.”

Jarmo Siltanen

The Solution

Training at the core of the pilot project

In March 2025, Xamk launched a roughly six‑month M365 Copilot pilot phase. M365 Copilot was chosen as the target of the pilot due to its strong security features. The pilot was carried out in collaboration with Sulava.

One hundred users from different units of the organisation, starting from top management, took part in the M365 Copilot pilot. During the pilot, the organisation’s technical readiness, benefits, use cases and staff training needs were evaluated. In addition, the feasibility of expanding usage, as well as its impacts on productivity, processes and operating models, were assessed. At the same time, the AI skills and utilization capabilities of those involved in the pilot were strengthened through training.

In the initial phase, the organisation’s technical readiness was brought to an appropriate level, and the development of understanding and responsibility thinking was started through training. Sulava was responsible for organising and delivering the pilot training.

In practice, Copilot brings AI capabilities to all Microsoft applications used at Xamk, which the staff utilise based on what they learned in the training. Key benefits include the speeding up of routine tasks and, as a result, improved work efficiency.

“Copilot became an integral part of the daily tools for many of those who participated in the pilot, and they don’t want to give it up. After the pilot, it was appropriate to continue expanding the deployment to the entire staff, once the matter had been thoroughly analysed”

Siltanen concludes.

Aim to Avoid Shadow AI

A clear goal of the pilot project’s training and guidelines was also the safe and efficient use of AI. The objective of the pilot was to provide staff with a shared, secure AI system and clear organisation-wide AI guidelines. These were intended to help prevent, among other things, the emergence of shadow AI within the organisation.

”Unified training and guidance for staff is aimed at ensuring that confidential or secret organisational data does not, for example, leak uncontrollably outside the organisation through AI applications that employees might use personally. This could lead to an unsustainable situation from the perspective of information security and data protection”, Siltanen explains.

The result

Transition from the M365 Copilot pilot to organisation-wide training

Based on the pilot, a decision was made to acquire M365 Copilot licences and training for the entire staff. Xamk became the first higher education institution in Finland whose entire personnel make use of AI.

The training aimed at all staff was tailored to suit the whole organisation and is aligned with the pilot. Sulava is responsible for delivering the training for all staff.

According to Siltanen, the collaboration with Sulava has gone well and all agreements have been honoured.

“Sulava has tailored its services for us exceptionally well. The training schedules and requirements have been designed precisely to meet our organisation’s needs, and collaboration has been very easy. Everything we agreed on has been delivered excellently”

Siltanen praises

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Writer: Juhani Lassila
Published march 2026