---
type: podcast-episode
slug: 04-jaakko-hartikainen-agileday
number: 4
title: No Waiting for Better Models
guestName: Jaakko Hartikainen
guestTitle: Co-founder & Co-CEO
guestLinkedin: 'https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaakkohartikainen'
guestCompany: Agileday
guestCompanyUrl: 'https://www.agileday.com/'
guestBio: >
  Jaakko Hartikainen is the co-founder and co-CEO of Agileday, a Finnish PSA
  platform for consulting and professional services firms. He spent 20 years in
  consulting before founding the company in 2022, designing it to be AI-native
  from the data structure up. He recently closed a €6.4M round to invest heavily
  in AI, turning both the product and the company's internal operations into a
  truly AI-native organisation.
hosts:
  - slug: tapio-haaja
  - slug: joni-juup
summary: >-
  Jaakko Hartikainen built Agileday AI-native from its 2022 founding, then
  raised €6.4M on the bet that the models are already good enough and execution
  is the only thing left. He shares how he rebuilt company strategy in a week
  with agents iterating overnight, why legacy PSA incumbents are losing
  competitive evaluations, and how AI is breaking the time-and-materials
  business model.
hook: >-
  The PSA market is full of legacy platforms bolting AI onto old code. Jaakko
  Hartikainen built Agileday AI-native from day one — and stopped waiting for
  better models.
youtubeId: Z0cIzRPrQG8
spotifyUrl: 'https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SiBBauL69UNPVQ76qlrX4'
appleUrl: >-
  https://podcasts.apple.com/fi/podcast/building-agentic-experiences/id1886740996?i=1000771851137
publishedAt: '2026-06-09'
updatedAt: '2026-06-09'
chapters:
  - time: '00:51'
    label: Introducing Agileday and the PSA industry
  - time: '06:36'
    label: Jaakko's personal AI aha moments
  - time: '09:50'
    label: Building company strategy with AI iterations
  - time: '14:25'
    label: AI capabilities inside Agileday and the importance of MCP servers
  - time: '23:07'
    label: Beating global PSA legacy incumbents
  - time: '30:31'
    label: Why the consulting business model is shifting to fixed-price
  - time: '35:26'
    label: Raising €6.4M to execute on AI immediately
  - time: '40:08'
    label: The vision for an AI-native company intelligence layer
---

The PSA software market is full of legacy platforms bolting AI onto decade-old code. Jaakko Hartikainen built Agileday AI-native from its 2022 founding, then raised €6.4M on the bet that the models are already good enough and execution is the only thing left.

Agileday started as a people-centric alternative to legacy ERPs for consulting firms. When generative AI arrived, Jaakko didn't retrofit — he accelerated. Today the product runs more than 10 agents, including one that reads an RFP and builds an optimal team in 60 seconds, and the company is winning competitive evaluations against global incumbents where AI is the deciding factor.

## What we cover

- **The internal AI transformation.** How Agileday reshaped its entire company strategy in a single week, iterating daily with a dedicated coder and agents running overnight, reviewed at 7am.
- **Automating operations.** Why MCP servers and autonomous agents are becoming a necessity, letting consultants respond to RFPs and build optimal teams in 60 seconds instead of hours.
- **Disrupting legacy giants.** Why incumbents weighed down by technical debt can't move fast enough, and how being AI-native from the data structure up wins evaluations.
- **The end of time-and-materials.** How AI is pushing consulting away from hourly billing toward outcome-based, fixed-price work.
- **An intelligence layer.** The vision for closed context loops, where the company's codified knowledge feeds the work and the executed work updates the context.