The Swedes and the Internet: the EB edition

The Swedish Internet Foundation has just released Svenskarna och internet 2026 (The Swedes and the Internet). Every year they ask thousands of Swedes how they use the internet, and this year much of it is about AI, social media, mindless scrolling and mobile habits. None of the questions are directly about employers. But read the report through an EB lens and it says quite a lot about how the path to an employer is changing: how (and where!) candidates look for information, which tools they use at work and which feeds they actually spend time in.

353 pages is a lot, so we picked out the things that stood out for those of us who work with employer branding. The figures are the Internet Foundation’s. The interpretations are ours.

1. One in seven Swedes googles less than last year

Fewer and fewer people google the traditional way, typing in a question and clicking through the links. 97 percent of Swedes still use Google, but most are now met by a ready-made answer. 71 percent read Google’s AI Overviews: a summary that AI writes from several sources, with links to them, placed at the top of the results before the regular hits.

The other route is to go straight to an AI service such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini and ask the question there, without going via Google. 62 percent do that, more than 20 percentage points more than a year ago. In total, 81 percent of Swedes use AI in one of these two ways.

One in seven Swedes also googles less than a year ago. Among the AI users in that group, 7 out of 10 say they use AI instead. It is clearest among the youngest: people born in the 2000s would rather go straight to the AI service than via Google.

OK, what does this mean for those of us working with EB?

The first thing a candidate reads about you as an employer is increasingly a summary. Someone who asks “what is it like to work as an engineer at [company]?” gets a ready-made five-line answer before clicking through to your career site. The answer is based on what the AI finds about you. If there is too little information from your own digital channels (like your website or career site), it fills in with other things.

At the same time, candidates don’t blindly trust the answer. 76 percent of AI users double-check, usually by comparing with other sources or clicking the links the AI provides. Your career site therefore becomes both the basis for the AI’s answer and what the candidate checks the answer against.

GEO: becoming the source in the answer

This is where GEO comes in, Generative Engine Optimization. SEO has long been about ranking high in search results and getting the click. GEO is about being the content that AI services find, understand and cite when they formulate an answer. Both are needed, but the weight is shifting towards GEO.

Do this

1. Test it yourself. Ask ChatGPT and Google your candidates’ questions. Is the answer correct, and is it your own content that shows up?
2. Make sure there is concrete information on your career site. It could be working hours, pay, the recruitment process or what a normal day looks like. “You choose whether to start at 7 or 9” gives the AI something to repeat.
3. Keep content clean and up to date. Clear headings and current information are easy to skim, for both a person and an AI. FAQs? AI loves them!

Try it: questions to paste in

Copy the questions straight into ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot. Replace what is in square brackets.

What is it like to work here?
What is it like to work as a [role] at [company]? What do employees say about the culture, leadership and work environment?

Pay and benefits
Roughly how much does a [role] at [company] earn, and what benefits are there?

Everyday work
Can you work from home at [company]? What are the working hours like for a [role]?

2. AI at work has become a question about the employer

The new search behaviour follows people into work. 56 percent of working people use AI in their jobs, twice as many as the year before. Among white-collar workers it is 71 percent and among blue-collar workers 33 percent. The next generation already has the habit: 83 percent of students use AI in their studies, and almost 8 out of 10 of them say it makes them more efficient.

What stands out is the uncertainty. 3 out of 10 working people don’t know whether their employer allows AI services. Among blue-collar workers it is more than half. One in five of those who don’t know use AI anyway.

OK, what does this mean for those of us working with EB?

For a candidate who wrote their thesis with the help of AI, the question “may I use AI here?” is as concrete as the question about remote work. The answer says something about how the employer views tools, trust and development. An unclear answer says something too.

The report has a side insight about our own industry. Those who don’t become more efficient with AI complain about duplicated work and texts that are “too generic”, with too many filler words. A man, 50, says:

“It is obvious when a text is AI-generated, and you come across as a FOOL for using it or posting it online.”

The same people read your job ads and career sites. EB copy that AI has written and no one has worked on is recognisable.

Do this

1. Write AI into your offer. Say which tools are available and what they may be used for, in job ads and on your career site for the roles where it is relevant.
2. Let a human have the final say. Feel free to use AI in content production, but it is the specific details from your business that make the text your own. And your tone of voice, of course.

3. Are you visible in the right feed?

Social media is still where almost everyone hangs out. 94 percent of Swedes use it and 83 percent do so every day. The biggest daily platforms are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. Between 2025 and 2026 things are fairly stable. Over a longer period, the shifts are clearer. Facebook’s daily use has fallen from 54 to 45 percent since 2021, while total use is stable. So Facebook still reaches widely, but fewer people are there every day. That affects how quickly a campaign builds reach and how the Meta budget is split between Facebook and Instagram. YouTube and Twitch are slowly declining and Reddit slowly growing. WhatsApp has grown the most of all since 2022, from 36 to 51 percent.

The clearest trend is about who is where. Men and women increasingly use different platforms, and the differences have grown over time. 76 percent of women use Instagram, compared with 56 percent of men. On Pinterest it is 29 percent of women versus 6 percent of men. In the other direction, 23 percent of men use Reddit and as many use Discord. Among women it is around 10 percent on Reddit and 7 percent on Discord.

LinkedIn: strong, but narrow

This year the report has its own section on LinkedIn. More than 4 out of 10 working people use the platform. Among white-collar workers it is 6 out of 10, among blue-collar workers 16 percent. Women in the private sector are the most active: just over half use LinkedIn, compared with just over 4 out of 10 men.

Those who use LinkedIn often like the networking, the job opportunities and that it feels serious, with clear senders. One describes it as “better than the Public Employment Service”. They dislike the bragging, the platitudes and the polished posts. Another calls the platform “a mutual admiration club”.

OK, what does this mean for those of us working with EB?

The right feed is where your target group actually is. It sounds obvious, but in employer branding the choice of channel is often driven by habit. LinkedIn reaches white-collar workers well. If you recruit for blue-collar roles, you reach one in six there. If you want more women in a male-dominated profession, or more men in a female-dominated one, the channel mix needs to start from where those people actually spend time. And if you want to reach women aged 20 to 34, fewer and better exposures do more than high frequency, in a group that says mindless scrolling makes them feel bad.

Being visible in the right feed is not enough either. What LinkedIn users say they dislike describes the most common employer content quite precisely: pride posts and polished employee portraits. And your own employees read them:

“I know how my company posts, and it is not at all accurate.”

Man, 49, blue-collar job

The same goes for ambassador programmes. A woman, 31, can’t be bothered to post anything herself because it “feels like you have to decide to become a ‘visible networker’ to get engagement”. A set-up that relies on everyone posting requires people to want to be visible, and many don’t.

Do this

1. Start with the target group. Where are the people you want to reach on an ordinary Tuesday? Choose channels and allocate budget based on that.
2. Give the LinkedIn audience something useful. It could be a salary range, a look at a real project or an answer to a common question.
3. Build ambassadorship on those who want to be visible. Give everyone else other ways to contribute, such as sharing jobs or answering candidates’ questions.

Start with a test

Ask ChatGPT three questions about you as an employer today and read the answer as a candidate would. Think about where the answer comes from, whether it is correct and whether it sounds like you. That says a lot about where you need to start.

Want help interpreting the answer, or doing something about it? Contact Charles Sinclair, Head of Employer Branding at Oddwork, at charlie@oddwork.se.

Source: Svenskarna och internet 2026, the Swedish Internet Foundation. Data collected by Novus in January 2026.

Want to strengthen your employer brand? Read more about how Oddwork works with employer branding, from analysis and EVP to campaigns and measurement.