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Ian Thomas is a strategist and technology advisor who has spent his career wondering whether he is a CTO, CMO, or CSO.  He’s tested this proposition in a wide range of national and international environments, including global enterprises like Fujitsu, international venture portfolios like OKIN Group, and national champions such as Lloyds Banking Group. He is also a member of the external advisory board of the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering in Germany and holds a range of advisory roles with early-stage technology companies in both the US and Europe.

When he’s not thinking about new business models or scouting the next big thing in technology, you’ll probably find him speaking or writing at the intersection of strategy, narrative, and technology.

Articles by Ian Thomas

Why poor infrastructure kills agentic AI – lessons from two enterprise IT leaders at OutSystems ONE

How do you create the right technological and organizational foundations for successful AI implementation? At OutSystems ONE in Miami, two enterprise IT leaders laid out the unglamorous but essential groundwork needed to make agentic AI viable.

Ian Thomas on stage with Jesse Brouhard and Eduardo Romano at OutSystems ONE

What’s left for humans to do in an AI-driven enterprise? Wrike thinks the answer lies in the latent spaces of work – and it could be a template for the future of human work

Most enterprise AI focuses on automating the predictable. Wrike is betting on a harder problem – using AI to carry meaning across the messy seams where ideas turn into plans and plans turn into action. I spoke with Wrike CPO Alexey Korotich to examine whether this offers a more credible future for human work than the industry’s default ‘human in the loop’ trope.

Digital Data, Human Connection, Innovation's Touch View © Flixx Studio - Canva

How Workato’s CIO handed the agent-building keyboard to the next generation – and why they won’t give it back

Automation vendor Workato says the AI agents it runs in its own internal systems are set to save the company millions of dollars a year. I went to talk to its CIO, Carter Busse, to find out how, exactly, he is doing it.

Hands of young person in beige long-sleeves top typing on a silver gray laptop

Can agent studios broker an AI truce between techno-optimists and enterprise incrementalists?

Enterprises face an uncomfortable choice between the exhilarating but risky agentic autonomy promoted by the new AI foundation model players, or the reassuring but limiting safety and control of their existing deterministic automation vendors - now a middle way is emerging.

Man standing at foggy crossroads at dusk chooses between three routes
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