Chief Technology Officer
R&D & Emerging Technology
What You Do Today
Lead R&D investments — prototyping new capabilities, evaluating emerging technologies, and building proof-of-concepts that might become the next product feature.
AI That Applies
AI-assisted prototyping that accelerates proof-of-concept development, automated benchmarking of emerging tools and frameworks, and research synthesis from academic and industry sources.
Technologies
How It Works
The system ingests academic and industry sources as its primary data source. A language model processes the input by identifying relevant context, generating appropriate responses, and structuring the output to match the expected format and domain conventions. The results integrate into the practitioner's existing workflow — presenting recommendations, flags, or automated outputs alongside their normal working context. The R&D direction.
What Changes
Prototyping accelerates. The AI generates initial code, identifies relevant open-source components, and benchmarks approaches against alternatives.
What Stays
The R&D direction. Choosing which bets to make, how much to invest, and when a prototype is ready for production requires technical judgment and business awareness.
What To Do Next
This section won't tell you what your numbers should be. It will show you how to find them yourself. Every instruction below produces a real, verifiable result in your organization. No benchmarks, no projections — just the steps to build your own evidence.
Establish Your Baseline
Know where you are before you move
Before adopting AI tools for r&d & emerging technology, understand your current state.
Without a baseline, you can't measure whether AI actually improved anything. You'll adopt tools without knowing if they're working.
Define Your Measures
What to track and how to calculate it
Time per cycle
How to calculate
Measure how long r&d & emerging technology takes end-to-end today, then after AI adoption.
Why it matters
The most visible improvement is speed. If AI doesn't save time, question whether it's adding value.
Quality of output
How to calculate
Track error rates, rework frequency, or stakeholder satisfaction scores before and after.
Why it matters
Speed without quality is just faster mistakes. Measure both.
Start These Conversations
Who to talk to and what to ask
your board chair or lead independent director
“What data do we already have that could improve how we handle r&d & emerging technology?”
They shape expectations for how AI appears in governance
your CTO or CIO
“Who on our team has the deepest experience with r&d & emerging technology, and what tools are they already using?”
They own the technology infrastructure that enables AI adoption
a peer executive at a company further along on AI adoption
“If we brought in AI tools for r&d & emerging technology, what would we measure before and after to know it actually helped?”
Their lessons learned are worth more than any consultant's framework
Check Your Prerequisites
Confirm readiness before you invest
Check items as you confirm them.