Ian Thomas

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

Box’s COO on why you should put content at the heart of your AI strategy

We discuss the findings of its recent survey on enterprise AI adoption with Box's COO, who makes the case for prioritizing content management.

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Workato doubles down on agents – but will its customers be able to keep pace?

Workato’s aggressive move into the agentic AI platform space remained a dominant theme at its recent World of Workato (WOW) user conference.

Businessman adds to pile of jenga blocks

Your 'Kobayashi Maru' moment for generative AI – will you pass or fail?

A climate of eye-watering valuations, spiralling hype, and gung-ho advisors are driving enterprises to ask how they can accelerate their adoption of generative AI. But with the disappointing results of early implementations gradually leaking out, what if that’s the wrong question?

Model of USS Enterprise on a starry space background

Why OutSystems’ new CEO is betting on AI and a pivot to business leadership for its next growth phase

Taking the helm at a crucial moment, OutSystems’ new CEO Woodson Martin has a range of urgent tasks in his inbox – from defining the company’s growth strategy to navigating emerging AI use cases. We caught up with him to hear more.

Why context engineering - not prompting - is the key to building reliable AI agents

The Large Language Models that power generative AI and the agents that rely on them have a memory problem that limits the usefulness of prompts alone. Enter context engineering.

Two young children building with alphabet blocks

No integration = no intelligence – why MCP matters for agent-scale automation

Every enterprise vendor seems to be introducing support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) to connect resources to agents. But is MCP ready for prime time?

A hand writing out Model Context Protocol with marker pen

Where do employees go to work in the agentic enterprise? Workato thinks it has the answer

As vendors race to deploy agents, issues of sprawl, security, and user experience are becoming acute. Workato believes its new ‘super–app’ layer – Workato GO – can help make the agentic enterprise more usable at scale.

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When the only winning move is not to play - enterprise takeaways from Apple’s paper on AI reasoning

Apple’s latest research into the reasoning abilities of today’s advanced language models suggest that we’d better not give them access to our nuclear deterrent just yet.

AI agents in the enterprise (part 2) – a simple taxonomy

Mapping out the four quadrants of enterprise AI agents - Instruction, Orchestration, Autonomy, Choreography - and their different risk profiles.

A diagram showing the four quadrants of enterprise AI agents

AI agents in the enterprise (part 1) – we need definitions

Enterprise technology vendors are hyping up AI agents and the potential of agentic AI. But what do these terms actually mean? It's time to map out the agent landscape.

Wooden blocks on table with AI agent written in stencil and magnifying glass behind

Why we need more than text-based prompts to unleash the full power of AI app building

AI-powered app builders are thrilling but flawed. If they’re going to scale for enterprise use, they need to go beyond natural language prompting and adopt some of the more structured techniques of traditional low- and no-code tools.

Slot machine barrel edited with red AI text in place of jackpot 7s

Does vibe coding have a place in the enterprise? Yes and no

The phenomenon of vibe coding - where AI creates code based on plain language instructions - is rising in popularity, but there are hidden risks for enterprises that leap on the bandwagon.

Red rolling dice in close-up shot bouncing on wooden table with blurred hand behind

Welcome to app roulette – here’s what happened when I tried vibe coding

Attendees at a vibe coding workshop see their apps come to life as if by magic - but would it fly in the enterprise?