Reports
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INTRODUCTION
Based on insights from 267 C-level automotive executives. More than two-thirds of surveyed automotive organizations remain in fragmented stages of AI implementation — reporting domain-specific deployments, pilot programs, or early exploration. Integration complexity across hardware, software, and edge environments — combined with uneven AI literacy and strict safety and latency requirements — is slowing enterprise-wide scale, even where strategic intent is strong. Our experience with automotive clients at HTEC mirrors these findings. Strong ambition to operationalize AI across ADAS, manufacturing, and connected vehicle services is consistently constrained by the challenge of moving from fragmented pilots to production-ready, system-wide deployment.
PREVIOUS PIECES
Point of View
Firsthand perspectives on leadership, strategy, and the decisions shaping what comes next — straight from our executive leadership.
Thae Economics of the Sovereign AI stack
Every executive weighing a sovereign AI strategy runs into the same tension: independence sounds appealing until you price it out. GPU pricing and benchmark scores make for a compelling slide, yet total cost of ownership is what actually decides who wins. The organizations getting this right aren’t chasing sovereignty as a principle. They’re mapping their workloads and deciding case by case what to own, rent, or leave to the public ecosystem.

Bojan Sukalo
Industry Managing
Partner, Telecom
The AI-Enabled Operating Model
Most large enterprises have an AI strategy, but very few have changed how the business runs. The default move is to bolt AI onto the existing operating model: hire a Chief AI Officer, stand up a function, run some pilots. But if the work still flows through the same approval chains and budget cycles designed for a pre-AI world, the result is friction.
Ronny Fehling, HTEC’s Chief AI Officer, argues that becoming genuinely AI-enabled requires redesigning the operating model itself — shifting decision rights closer to the work, funding AI as a portfolio of small bets rather than projects, and distributing AI capability throughout the organization.

Ronny Fehling
Chief AI Transformation
Officer
The Software Gap Holding AI Back: What Semiconductor Leaders Can Learn From the EV Transition
Craig Melrose, HTEC’s Global Managing Partner, Advanced Technologies, draws on the lessons of the EV transition to argue that semiconductor companies are falling into a familiar trap: building powerful AI hardware while underinvesting in the software infrastructure needed to deploy it at scale. Without vertically integrated software stacks and a clear focus on high-value use cases, even the most advanced silicon risks stalling at the edge of mainstream adoption.

Craig Melrose
Global Managing Partner
Where to Bet: How PE Firms Should Allocate AI Investment Across the Portfolio
Most private equity firms know AI creates value — the harder question is where to allocate it, in which portfolio company, and in what sequence. This framework helps PE firms make disciplined AI investment decisions that drive measurable operating leverage before exit.

Dejan Pokrajac
Global Head of Private
Equity Partnerships
Make AI Real: Why the AI Race Has Moved from Models to Production
Speed‑to‑value used to mean a fast pilot. In the AI era, it means a fast, scalable path to production — with adoption and trust built in. Alex Rumble, HTEC’s Chief Marketing Officer, shares her point of view on why repeatable AI-driven operating models are becoming essential to making AI real at scale.

Alex Rumble
Chief Marketing
Officer
Events
From insight to shared perspective.
Some conversations are better experienced together.
Events bring people, ideas, and disciplines into the same room, physically or digitally, to explore what’s next in real time. This is where analysis turns into dialogue.




Medical Alley 2026 Annual Gathering
Location
Orchestra Hall,
Minneapolis, MN
Date
May 21, 2026
Time
5:00 PM – onward
UPCOMING EVENT

Alfred Olivares
Global Managing Partner – HCLS

David Giannino
Senior Client Partner

Andrew McGee
Senior Client Partner

Alex Dukic
Chief Digital Officer
ON DEMAND SESSIONS
AI and future for telecommunication
Duration: 50 mins
AI Adoption in Enterprise: Critical success factors
Duration: 32 mins
Duration: 50 mins
White papers
Depth over noise
Translating years of hands-on engineering and strategy into structured knowledge, built for leaders shaping critical decisions.
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