I’d create a movement to capture and preserve the living knowledge of ordinary people — we’re about to lose the last generation that remembers a pre-digital world, and with them, irreplaceable ways of thinking. My generation is probably the last bridge generation. We remember rotary phones and analog childhoods, but we’re also native to the internet in our youth. More importantly, our grandparents’ generation still carries knowledge that has never been written down and never will be. How to be bored productively. How boredom felt when it couldn’t be instantly solved — and what emerged from it. How you dealt with not knowing something when you couldn’t just look it up immediately. What concentration felt like before notification culture programmed our brains differently. The actual feeling of living with less information and more certainty, or more ambiguity and less anxiety about it — now everything needs to be validated by Googling or AI-ing (is that a word yet?). We treat AI like it should make us futuristic, but something really powerful might be archaeological. We’re living through the fastest cultural amnesia in human history. Everything’s being documented except the internal experience of being human in different eras. I’m 31, which means I have maybe 20–30 years left with people who remember the 1950s-70s as adults. That’s one generation’s worth of time to capture five generations’ worth of living memory. After that, it’s just gone. Right now we’re burning the library while building the new one.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure to interview Espen Fretheim Loeng.
Espen Fretheim Loeng is the VP of Sales in Stenoly. He has worked many years as a strategic commercial executive in a variety of industries. He’s founded and scaled high-performing marketing and sales agencies across B2B services and tech, with a focus on measurable outcomes. Recently, with Stenoly, he has taken a deep-dive in AI and what it can mean for the future of healthcare.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path in AI?
My journey into AI started around three years ago. I’d been reading about and experimenting with AI tools daily, and it changed how I worked, handled problems, and how I processed information. I’ve always been drawn to new technology, but AI felt different. It felt like one of those rare inflection points where the world is about to change. In April 2025, Erling Løken Andersen, told me about a new venture he was working on called Stenoly. I loved the concept immediately — using AI to solve one of healthcare’s biggest problems: administrative burden drowning clinicians. It was one of those ideas where both the problem and solution seemed obvious. How was this not already everywhere? I think I asked Erling if I could join the company the second time we met — I recognized an opportunity to actually build something meaningful in a space that desperately needed it.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started working with artificial intelligence?
My most interesting story with AI happened in late 2024/early 2025 and is directly linked to Stenoly. I started noticing something was off — I needed significantly more recovery time after training, my resting heart rate was higher than normal, and I felt fatigued with less power during workouts. Classic signs something was wrong, so I did what you’re supposed to do: I went to the doctor and took blood tests. Three times over six months, but everything came back normal. Around April 2025, Erling gave me access to test the platform. I decided to tell Stenoly my story — described all my symptoms, uploaded my blood test results, the whole situation. Stenoly came back with a suspicion: mononucleosis. It also pointed out that I hadn’t actually been tested for mono in any of my previous doctor visits. I went back to my doctor, specifically requested the test, and Stenoly was right. Mononucleosis. Suddenly everything made sense — the fatigue, the prolonged recovery, all of it. That’s when I really understood what Stenoly could become. Not a replacement for doctors, but a tool that ensures nothing falls through the cracks — making healthcare even better.
You are a successful leader in the AI space. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I’d say these three traits have been most instrumental: curiosity/always learning, relationship-building instinct, and a bias toward action over certainty.
Curiosity / Always Learning
To me, a day without learning something new feels like a day wasted. I really struggle with reading books, so I’ve built my own learning system: I spend significant (too much) time on Twitter/X following people writing about topics I want to understand better. Every time I read something that sparks interest, I bookmark it and add it to my to-do list. Then, in the following days, I test those insights and take action on them. This approach has led to rapid learning cycles and keeps me constantly ahead of new trends, strategies, and ideas. This is also how my journey into AI started.
Building Relationships
My sister always said I’d end up in sales, and she was right. I somehow landed in sales while at university and became a top performer from day one — not because I knew anything about sales techniques, but because I genuinely believe most people have something interesting to say. You can learn something from anyone if you’re actually curious. Good questions that come from real curiosity, build relationships faster than any sales training ever could. I was selling energy deals, and the people I was selling to knew much more than me about energy deals — a great way to learn! People can tell when you’re actually interested versus when you’re just following a script, so try to be genuine and curious.
Bias Toward Action
Every time I’m unsure about how to do something, I just start. When I was 21, I started my first company with no idea about how to run a company. I remember calling my mother to borrow money for starting capital. She needed convincing, and I remember telling her: «Mom, I’ll figure it out. I promise!» Four years later, that company had grown to 50 employees across four cities. The lesson: you figure things out by being in motion, not by waiting until you’re ready. In AI, where everything changes monthly, that bias toward action over certainty is the only way to stay relevant.
Let’s jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a specific example of how you or your organization used AI to solve a major business challenge? What was the problem, and how did AI help address it?
The answer here is pretty simple: administrative burden is killing healthcare workers. Burnout rates among clinicians are at crisis levels, and a huge driver is the hours they spend on documentation instead of patient care. Stenoly’s solution utilizes AI as the essence of the service — it captures clinical conversations in real time and automatically generates the required documentation while the clinician stays fully present with the patient. No typing during the visit. No staying late to finish notes and writing referrals.
What are some of the common misconceptions you’ve encountered about using AI in business? How do you address those misconceptions?
I’m going to say «AI will replace jobs». Yes, some jobs will be replaced by AI, but I also believe new ones will be created. For the most part, AI will replace tasks, not people. In our case with Stenoly, we’re eliminating documentation work that was already pushing healthcare workers toward burnout. AI isn’t the thing forcing people out of healthcare — administrative burden is. Stenoly is solving the actual problem and giving healthcare workers their time back.
In your opinion, what is the most significant way AI can make a positive impact on businesses today?
For businesses, AI’s immediate impact is simple: automate the stuff humans shouldn’t be doing. Every company has a gap between what people are capable of and what they actually spend time on. AI’s real value isn’t making businesses more efficient at what they’re already doing — it’s freeing people to do the work only humans can do. Strategic thinking, creative problem-solving and building relationships. We see this clearly at Stenoly: doctors don’t need to be better at typing notes. They need to be present with patients. AI doesn’t make them better note-takers — it removes documentation as a barrier to being better doctors.
Ok, let’s dive deeper. Based on your experience and research, can you please share “3 Ways AI Can Solve Complex Business Problems”? These can be strategies, insights, or tools that companies can use to make the most of AI in addressing their challenges. If possible, please share examples or stories for each.
Make Internal Knowledge Easily Findable
Problem: Teams keep asking the same questions and searching through internal systems to find the answer.
How AI can help: Create a knowledge database and let an internal AI assistant search your own docs and return answers with sources.
Outbound That Doesn’t Feel Cold
Problem: Generic outreach is annoying, wastes time and burns leads.
How AI can help: Research accounts, use AI to segment them (the more the better), and then let AI draft 80% of the message with a clear angle to each segment. Good prompting is key. For the finish it is very important that a human personalizes the last 20%. The message should be relevant and tailored.
Why? Fewer sends, more real conversations. Quality over volume.
Meetings → Notes → CRM → Next Steps
Problem: Notes are messy or never make it into the system.
How AI helps: Speech-to-text (Fireflies, Cluely etc.) + summary + action items pushed into CRM/Slack automatically.
Why? Better follow-ups — and they actually happen because the tasks are created for you.
How can smaller businesses or startups, with limited budgets, begin to integrate AI into their operations effectively?
Start narrow: pick one frequent, boring process (meeting notes, proposal drafts etc.). Use off-the-shelf tools first. Claude/OpenAI + simple integrations (Zapier is your friend). Measure minutes saved, not «AI-ness.» Time saved per week is your ROI. Keep a human in the loop. AI drafts; a person publishes. A lot of AI tools are not that expensive — many are worth giving a shot.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitant to adopt AI because of fear, misconceptions, or lack of understanding?
Your competitors are already using AI. Just start, or hire an AI consultant to help you!
In your opinion, how will AI continue to shape the business world over the next 5–10 years? Are there any trends or emerging innovations you’re particularly excited about?
I will certainly be wrong about a prediction for 5–10 years ahead — but one thing feels certain: AI will widen the gap between teams that learn fast and those that wait. The winners will treat AI as a co-worker, not a gadget. Companies will automate the busywork, keep humans on judgment, and keep iterating. There’s a lot of interesting things going on in the healthcare industry, and AI will have a huge impact! I’m very excited to see where Stenoly will be in 5 years.
How do you think the use of AI to solve business problems influences relationships with customers, employees, and the broader community?
Customers: Faster, more relevant answers. Be upfront when it’s a bot and always offer “talk to a human” — nothing is more annoying than being forced to talk to a bot when you know you need a real person to get your problem solved. Employees: Less boring tasks, more focus — leadership must give time for training and celebrate usage. Community: Better accessibility (language, inclusivity). But we must own bias and misinformation risks.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people through AI, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’d create a movement to capture and preserve the living knowledge of ordinary people — we’re about to lose the last generation that remembers a pre-digital world, and with them, irreplaceable ways of thinking. My generation is probably the last bridge generation. We remember rotary phones and analog childhoods, but we’re also native to the internet in our youth. More importantly, our grandparents’ generation still carries knowledge that has never been written down and never will be. How to be bored productively. How boredom felt when it couldn’t be instantly solved — and what emerged from it. How you dealt with not knowing something when you couldn’t just look it up immediately. What concentration felt like before notification culture programmed our brains differently. The actual feeling of living with less information and more certainty, or more ambiguity and less anxiety about it — now everything needs to be validated by Googling or AI-ing (is that a word yet?). We treat AI like it should make us futuristic, but something really powerful might be archaeological. We’re living through the fastest cultural amnesia in human history. Everything’s being documented except the internal experience of being human in different eras. I’m 31, which means I have maybe 20–30 years left with people who remember the 1950s-70s as adults. That’s one generation’s worth of time to capture five generations’ worth of living memory. After that, it’s just gone. Right now we’re burning the library while building the new one.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Best place is LinkedIn — search Espen Fretheim Loeng and send me a message!
Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
Espen Fretheim Loeng of Stenoly On How Artificial Intelligence Can Solve Business Problems was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.