Maria Sandgren: Would You Let an AI Agent Buy Your Next Car?

Would you let an AI agent buy your next car? Maria Sandgren thinks that could be possible within a year. But she will still choose her own boat.

Maria is Executive Vice President and Chief Product and Technology Officer at Vend, the Nordic marketplace company with brands such as Blocket, and this is her very first podcast. Her route into tech started in the 1990s with a computer that did not work, and it led her from law and politics to leading product and technology across recommerce, real estate, mobility and jobs.

In this conversation with Elin Eriksson, Maria Sandgren shares:

• Why trust is the thing to get right for both humans and AI agents, and why agents can find things today but are not yet trusted to buy them
• What it took to turn four national organizations into one Vend culture with more than 30 nationalities
• How Vend approaches AI with a Department of AI, 1,000 days to become AI driven and whole days with empty calendars, and why AI fatigue is part of the conversation
• What a dare culture looks like in practice, from learning lunches to openness about neurodiversity
• Why disruptive times open doors for women and non-binary people in tech

Maria's message to the Women in Tech Sweden community: tech is a broad place, and it is the place to be if you want to drive change.

This episode was produced in collaboration with Vend.