Could AI finally mean fewer potholes? Swedish firm expands road-scanning technology across three continents

Motorists across Europe may soon benefit from a new generation of artificial intelligence designed to spot potholes before drivers hit them

Swedish technology company Flowity has secured its first investment round to expand a system that automatically detects cracks, potholes and other road surface damage using ordinary video footage.

Flowity’s platform, known as Flowity Road Analysis, uses computer vision to analyse standard video capture and automatically classify surface damage.

The system then produces map-ready data that road authorities can feed directly into maintenance planning systems.

This allows roads to be assessed more quickly and at lower cost, without deploying sensor-equipped inspection vehicles, according to the company.

The technology is already being used in projects across the Nordics, the Baltic region and parts of the United States, as well as in infrastructure programmes in the Caribbean and Papua New Guinea.

“Our experience spans advanced U.S. transport markets to remote and developing regions,” co-founder Dan Levy said.

“Across continents, we see the same challenge: infrastructure decisions are often made without scalable, reliable data. Our mission is to modernize road infrastructure management globally — and this investment allows us to accelerate that transformation.”

The firm works with municipalities, counties and national road authorities, and has collaborated with the World Bank on infrastructure assessment projects in developing markets.

Road inspections in many countries still rely on manual surveys or specialist vehicles that scan surfaces at intervals. That can mean defects go unnoticed until they worsen — particularly in colder regions where freeze–thaw cycles rapidly turn small cracks into axle-busting potholes.

While Flowity’s technology does not fix roads itself, earlier and more consistent detection of defects could allow authorities to intervene before minor cracks deteriorate into more serious damage — potentially reducing long-term repair costs and the number of major potholes forming.

Flowity said the funding will support expansion across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, alongside further development of its AI capabilities.

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_{Main image: Alan Stanton / CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)}