As AI notetakers increasingly join corporate meetings, Iceland is pitching a low-tech option. Meet the AI Knittaker, a local Icelandic artisan who listens to workplace calls and stitches a one-word summary of the discussion.
In this case, the AI stands for “Authentic Icelandic” knitters, a group of more than 20 crafters who offer a free bookable service. As part of a campaign introduced on Thursday by Visit Iceland, the knitters will join meetings via Google Meet link and humorously summarize corporate jargon like “pivot,” “align,” or “reset,” or even cruder terms like “WTF?,” in Icelandic wool.
When the online meeting ends, the employee who booked the service at AIKnittaker.com will receive a photograph of the knittaker holding the finished word, along with details about the artisan, their story, and the Icelandic region they call home.
Meeting organizers in the U.S. and Europe can also request shipment of the original hand-knitted garment.
Visit Iceland, the nation’s marketing and tourism organization, is offering around 330 one-hour slots for the AI Knittakers throughout the campaign, which runs from October 29 to November 20.
“We wanted to use this as a message for people to connect more to the real world,” Sigríður Dögg Guðmundsdóttir, Visit Iceland’s spokesperson, tells Fast Company.
Visit Iceland’s campaign threads the island nation’s knitting heritage, workers feeling inundated with unnecessary meetings, and the rise of AI notetakers. Gallup has found that one in five Americans who use AI at work rely on these tools for meeting assistance or transcription.
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