Two pictures are pinned side by side on the first working day of 2027. On the left, seventeen marks: six of them the plum of agents that act with an identity of their own, two of those the largest size the notation draws, one in the row where actions are hard to reverse. On the right, eleven marks, most of them the dark blue of applications built or bought for one purpose, three with hollow diamonds where a control is planned and not yet in place, one drawn hollow because its pilot is paused. The two pictures use the same columns, rows, sizes and colours, so the eye moves between them without translating. That is the only reason the comparison is possible.
The pair are Nordvik Region, a regional public authority in a Nordic member state of the European Union, and Hansa Mutual, a mutual insurance group headquartered in Hamburg with entities in seven countries, four in the EU, one in the EEA and two outside both. Neither is real, and 2027 is a modelled year: it has not run as this book is dated, 7 November 2026, and every event below is one that the two models record, told in the present tense as a scenario and not as a forecast. Every figure is rendered from the two landscape models and nothing in the chapter is data. It follows both through the year in Contour, the notation of Chapter 4, and ends with the two side by side.
Read Figure 18.1 in the thirty-second order of Chapter 4. The empty corner, Level 4 Autonomous at R4 Irreversible, is empty in both panels.
Primary topics explored
- January: two landscapes at the start
- The first half
- The second half
- December: two landscapes at the end
- Side by side
- Summary
About Landscape
Landscape is a companion to The Transformed Architecture. It examines what happens when artificial intelligence takes the manager's chair: algorithmic management of direction, evaluation, consequence, development and care, the effects on people, the management of AI agents, Europe's legal answer, and how to design an accountable AI boss, for European enterprises and public authorities.
It builds on the conclusions of Architecture as Code, AI Governance, AI Platform and Security, AI Red Team, AI Threat and The Transformed Security Architect.
Executives, line managers, HR and people leaders, works councils and trade unions, public employers, architects and AI governance leads, data protection and legal officers, procurement and programme leaders, and risk, compliance and audit.
Gunnar Nordqvist
Conceived, directed and published the books of The Transformed Architecture.
Continue with the full chapter
Chapter 18: A Year at Nordvik Region and Hansa Mutual: Two Landscapes Compared in Landscape gives the detailed explanations, practical examples and implementation patterns behind this summary.
This whitepaper belongs to “Drawing Your Landscape” and is one of 26 drawn from the manuscript.