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Tom Pringle

Director at Pilot Research

Oxford, United Kingdom

I bring together technology theory and practice, uncovering, explaining and exploring technology, business and economic trends, their implications, and how to plan for them. My work in this area has included:

- Writing & managing thought leadership programmes, built on rigorous, independent research & analysis
- Exploring, defining and building product-market fit supported with actionable go-to-market plans
- Market and competitive intelligence for software vendors
- Helping organisations plan, manage and use technology to enable business outcomes
- Owning and evolving a market-leading taxonomy and the methodologies used to operate it

I’m an accomplished business leader and have worked with the full spectrum of experience levels and stakeholders, in small to large teams and businesses, distributed globally, and within matrixed organisations. Helping people see and achieve their potential is, and remains, perhaps the best thing I’ve done as a manager and executive. I continually seek out opportunities to mentor and coach.

Ensuring people can be themselves in the workplace is important to me, and I’ve helped build, manage and sponsor two LGBTQ+ groups during my career so far.

When I’m researching and writing my personal focus is, usually, in data and information management, analytical technologies, and the evolution of enterprise applications. I'm curious about the role those technologies play in digital transformation, and particularly automation and customer experience, along with their privacy implications. Recently this has led to a practical and philosophical interest in AI's social and economic impact.

Presentation and storytelling is a key part of my experience. I’m a sought-after public speaker with a demonstrable track record in simplifying technology, and exploring how it can be used for creating value.

Available For: Advising, Authoring, Consulting, Influencing, Speaking
Travels From: Oxford / London, UK

Speaking Fee $7,500 (In-Person), $5,000 (Virtual)

Tom Pringle Points
Academic 0
Author 20
Influencer 16
Speaker 0
Entrepreneur 20
Total 56

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Average Hourly Rate: $200-$300
Number of Employees: 1-10
Company Founded Date: 2022
Media Experience: 20+ years

Areas of Expertise

Agentic AI
Agile 30.07
AI 30.21
Analytics 30.04
Big Data 30.02
Business Strategy 30.21
Cloud
Culture 30.02
Customer Experience
Digital Transformation 30.05
Diversity and Inclusion
Emerging Technology
Generative AI
IoT
IT Strategy 30.23
Leadership 30.27
Marketing 30.29
Predictive Analytics
Privacy 30.15
Product Management 38.20
Startups 31.29

Industry Experience

Aerospace & Defense
Consumer Products
Cross Industry
Federal & Public Sector
Financial Services & Banking
High Tech & Electronics
Media
Professional Services
Telecommunications

Publications

20 Article/Blogs
The Pilot’s Compass: AI Boosterism Should Stop, But It Won’t: There’s Too Much At Stake
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June 25, 2025
In the world of AI, an abundance of "boosterism" — an uncritical,
optimistic promotion of the technology — has firmly taken hold, largely
driven by the enormous investments in money, reputations, and effort
already poured into it. Yet, despite the hype, the tangible benefits of AI
currently

See publication

Tags: AI, Business Strategy, Leadership

The Pilot’s Compass: AI May Be The (Surprisingly) Human-Friendly Solution To Decades Of Technology Complexity
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May 27, 2025
In this edition of the Pilot’s Compass: ducks, dinosaurs, and AI.

I believe AI might well be the answer to tackling a constantly evolving
technology landscape built on decades of interconnected legacy and data,
but, there’s a catch. By masking complexity are we laying the foundations
of a sy

See publication

Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, IT Strategy

The Pilot's Compass: To Make Digital Labour Work Means Making Work, Work For Humans
linkedin
April 23, 2025
Digital Labour is, I’d say, impossible to avoid as a topic in the technology world. This is the latest iteration of a broad narrative, that the ever-present challenge of growing / maintaining / stopping a collapse in (delete as you see fit) productivity, can be solved through the use of technology. Very particularly, in this case of this conversation, digital labour is being brought to us in the form of AI “agents”; leading to the - in my view - awful term, “agentic AI’.

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Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, Leadership

The Pilot’s Compass: To Make Digital Labour Work Means Making Work, Work For Humans
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April 23, 2025
Digital Labour is, I’d say, impossible to avoid as a topic in the
technology world. This is the latest iteration of a broad narrative, that
the ever-present challenge of growing / maintaining / stopping a collapse
in (delete as you see fit) productivity, can be solved through the use of
techno

See publication

Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, Leadership

The Pilot's Compass: AI Is Too Big To Fail
linkedin
April 10, 2025
On the first point, I can assure - but not prove - it isn’t. On the second, I think there is simply too much invested in AI to allow it not to become “successful”. Let’s take a look at what’s invested in AI

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Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

The Pilot’s Compass: AI Is Too Big To Fail
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April 10, 2025
I believe investment in AI involves not just money but also significant
amounts in both reputation and effort, creating huge pressure for it to be
perceived as successful. This is all multiplied by a fear of failure that
these investments create. It is doubtful that AI in its present state will

See publication

Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

When Personal Data In AI Risks Personalized Harm
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February 14, 2025
With the extended scope of AI-powered outcomes and the possibility of them
making wider-ranging and more impactful decisions, the risk of harm
presented by the use of personal data in AI is significant. Harm that could
be founded on some of our most fundamental personal characteristics.

See publication

Tags: AI, Leadership, Privacy

Combining Purpose And Outcome To Understand AI’s Impact
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June 19, 2024
Together, Purpose and Outcome are more than the sum of their parts, I think
of it as being similar to a simple equation. For example, if the purpose is
commercial, say tailored advertising, and the outcome’s scope is limited to
offering a small discount for a product or service then the result

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Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

Independence At Pilot Research
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June 07, 2024
I know I’m not alone in my belief that being an analyst in the technology
world means being rigorously independent. But what does being independent
mean?

My interest is in a practical, shareable and disclosable perspective that
gives a starting point from which people can then make up their ow

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Tags: Business Strategy, Culture, Leadership

Trust In AI Requires The Human Touch
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June 04, 2024
Human governance or oversight is, in my view, often overlooked yet critical
to building and sustaining trust in the development and use of AI.

See publication

Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

Avoiding An AI Disappearing Act With Transparency
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May 21, 2024
When trying to explain how something works, transparency is - perhaps
obviously - important. The question that needs to be addressed is,

“If an AI solution being developed or adopted is a black box, whether by
design or perhaps shielded by complexity, then how is it possible to trust
it?”

See publication

Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

AI-Generated Toxic Waste Is The Risk Of Bad Data
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May 07, 2024
Many of those in the world of data, business intelligence and analytics are
very familiar with the line, “garbage in, garbage out.” This is just as
true of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. In fact, given the broad
scope of use cases and outcomes that could have AI applied to them, o

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Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

Bringing Subjective Values To Objective Assessment
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April 23, 2024
The AI-TQ does not attempt to impose any specific set of values on
organizations using it. Doing so would be to assert the values of a third
party. It does assert that values are an important part of any
organization’s fabric and sets an expectation that they will be assessed as
part of the pr

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Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

Introducing The Artificial Intelligence Trust Quotient
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March 19, 2024
Bridging The Trust Gap

The Artificial Intelligence Trust Quotient (AI-TQ) is designed to help
address some of the gaps AI technologies are exposing in existing
assessments of technology. It is my view that the biggest gap being exposed
is that of trust.

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Tags: AI, Leadership, Product Management

Making a labor saving with AI? Make it more valuable by reinvesting it
LinkedIn
April 25, 2019
There is much talk today of the ethical use of artificial intelligence. In my opinion, this is a good thing. However, apart from debate usually found at the philosophical end of the spectrum, the impact that AI capabilities have on people’s work is often missing. We are often keen to talk about the labor saved, but rarely give much time to how that saved labor is to be redeployed. The risk of technological unemployment is on the rise and AI, as a technology, can replace brains as well as muscle.

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Tags: Agile, Business Strategy, Leadership

More than the sum of its parts, the future of bigger gains with AI
LinkedIn
March 08, 2019
One of the most frequent questions I get about artificial intelligence (AI) is "What's going to happen next?" Typically, these conversations gravitate toward extremes of the AI spectrum, starting with the realistic technology of today followed by a rapid shift to the science fiction of maybe tomorrow. What is discussed less frequently is the middle ground between those two extremes. That middle ground is the next handful of years. With organizations continuing to adopt narrow AI capabilities at pace, an opportunity will present itself to orchestrate them for broader and more valuable insights via a concept Ovum calls "supersystem AI."

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Tags: AI, Business Strategy, Leadership

Lady Justice can teach AI a thing or two
LinkedIn
November 26, 2018
Lady Justice, the blindfolded statue bearing scales found outside many courthouses, is the personification of the Roman goddess of justice, Iustitia. The principles it represents are simple: the blindfold (a later addition) represents impartiality, so that justice is dispensed regardless of status, while the scales are free-hanging as the weight of evidence may change over the course of the trial. What this statue represents appears to me an excellent metaphor for how machine learning, and other artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, should be forged.

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Tags: Agile, Leadership, Privacy

Productivity gains are the real story for AI in the enterprise
LinkedIn
June 07, 2018
A perception gulf between science fiction and business fact exists in AI. This split is primarily the result of popular culture and the ever-busy technology hype machine. AI can be the stuff of science fiction, where machines’ intelligence outpaces that of their human creators, often resulting in world-as-we-know-it-ending apocalypse. The enterprise reality of AI is both less terrifying and more enriching for enterprises who adopt it: a labor-saving, outcome-improving technology that enables productivity gains.

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Tags: AI, Business Strategy, Leadership

It doesn't take AI to figure out that "garbage in, garbage out" is as true today as it ever was
LinkedIn
February 01, 2018
Getting checks signed for data management work has never been easy. Even in situations where requests were driven by compliance requirements, the response has often been resigned acceptance instead of enthusiastic approval. However, the rationale for making these investments is growing ever stronger. Effective data management was first emphasized in compliance, and more recently with analytics programs, and now with a new wave of technology – the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Feeding poor-quality or incomplete data to AI invites risks that executives need to be aware of – not least, high-profile public failures that can damage brands.

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Tags: AI, Analytics, Big Data

Digital transformations need existing IT to come along for the ride
LinkedIn
October 31, 2017
For an overwhelming majority of enterprises, there are two sides to digital transformation: first, the slick, visually appealing online presence that serves as the "face" of the business; second, the enterprise applications that carry out the business or service the first showcases. Focusing on the first without properly connecting it to the second will lead businesses to make digital promises that they will likely fail to keep

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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Leadership

1 Founder
Founder and Director
Pilot Research Limited
March 01, 2022
Founder and Director at Pilot Research Limited, a UK-based market research and advisory firm focused on serving software and technology businesses through the planning, development and creation of authoritative and distinct thought leadership.

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Tags: Marketing, Product Management, Startups

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