Exploring the future of digital strategy and AI with Tangent's COO, Caroline Goodwin, and CTO, Andy Eva-Dale
For more than 20 years, Tangent has been a force to be reckoned with. They are experts working with experts. Representing a perfect blend of creativity, strategy, and expertise that delivers innovative, cutting-edge solutions. With a growing hybrid team of 90 staff across the UK, Spain, Poland, South Africa, and beyond, they are on a mission to craft future-ready digital experiences that prioritize people, planet, and purpose.
Today, we talked to Tangent's COO, Caroline Goodwin, and CTO, Andy Eva-Dale, about emerging trends and how their team is revolutionising digital experiences for some of the world's most creative companies.
If we talk about emerging trends, let's start with the rise of AI use in business. How do you foster a culture of innovation and AI adoption within Tangent?
Caroline and Andy: To foster a culture of innovation and AI adoption at Tangent, we focus on two key areas.
Firstly, operationally – how we leverage technology and processes to adapt to more efficient ways of working. We've empowered teams to pilot various AI tools for content and code summarisation, generation, and translation to explore their potential. This has been supported by flexible and progressive AI policies and ways of working.
Secondly, in the products we create for our clients and staff. We've always been forward-thinking in integrating new technologies into our solutions, and AI is no exception. With the boom in LLMs and other AI-related technologies, we're identifying significant opportunities for our clients to increase profits or reduce costs. We're collaborating with stakeholders to conduct workshops on process optimisation and identifying small PoC (Proof of Concept) projects using the latest models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, etc, to demonstrate value quickly. We then iterate agilely to develop a production-ready MVP.
Supporting both these streams – operations and product development – we've cultivated a culture that encourages innovation. This includes creating a safe space for experimentation, offering professional development plans and training in emerging technologies, and hosting an annual Hackathon where our global staff come together to solve real-world business problems using AI. Recently, we launched Tangenie, a Slack-enabled tool that allows our staff to quickly find answers without sifting through extensive documentation.
To showcase and reward innovation within Tangent, we've also introduced a quarterly innovation session, during which we share and celebrate the best ideas from across the business and the broader market.
You recently invested £5 million in a specialist AI division. What impact do you hope this move will have?
Caroline and Andy: We have always prioritised using advanced technologies to solve our clients' business challenges, and AI is a crucial part of that strategy.
The release of OpenAI's GPT-3.5 in November 2023, along with rapid advancements in large language models from Anthropic, Llama, and Mistral, has significantly enhanced our ability to deliver value through AI-driven solutions.
We’ve seen a sharp increase in RFPs for AI products, reflecting the growing industry recognition of AI's potential.
To stay ahead and ensure we meet our clients’ needs, we’ve invested in building a strong team with deep expertise in delivering enterprise-grade applications. This investment positions us to continue offering innovative AI solutions that drive real business outcomes, maintaining our role as leaders in this space.
We also see that personalised experiences are more in demand than ever. How does Tangent help clients achieve effective personalisation?
Caroline and Andy: At Tangent, we deliver personalised experiences that meet each client’s unique business needs. To achieve this, we carefully assess whether to build custom solutions or leverage existing services, considering factors like client requirements, budget, and long-term objectives.
We often utilise established CMS platforms and plugins, such as uMarketingSuite, for Umbraco and tools within the Contentful ecosystem. One key tool is Ninetailed, now fully integrated with Contentful, which allows us to implement sophisticated personalisation strategies.
Ninetailed offers a composable, AI-driven personalisation and experimentation platform that empowers marketing teams to create, manage, and optimise personalised experiences seamlessly within the Contentful environment. This no-code approach means marketers can easily define audience segments, run A/B tests, and analyze results without extensive developer support.
By leveraging these tools, we can help clients implement personalisation at scale, using existing investments in content and customer data to drive meaningful business outcomes. In cases where a business requires a highly tailored solution, we can also build custom personalisation tools. Still, we often find that the robust features of these existing platforms offer a solid foundation for most needs.
Our approach ensures that whether we’re using off-the-shelf solutions or building custom ones, we deliver effective and efficient personalisation that enhances customer experiences and drives results for our clients.
What role do data and analytics play in this process?
Caroline and Andy: Data and analytics are critical in driving both personalisation and AI efforts. They allow us to understand customer behaviour, enabling precise audience segmentation and tailored experiences. In AI, data is essential for training models, implementing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and providing the organisational context needed for accurate outputs.
We utilise platforms like Databricks and Azure Synapse to help clients harness their data effectively, maximising the impact of both AI and personalisation. These tools enable businesses to process and analyse data at scale, ensuring that personalisation efforts are data-driven and that AI solutions are finely tuned to meet specific business needs.
In short, data and analytics are the backbone of our approach, ensuring that our personalisation and AI strategies are both effective and continuously optimised.
How does Tangent support clients embedding AA accessibility standards into their digital strategies?
Caroline and Andy: For us, accessibility isn’t just a checkbox. It’s a commitment. That’s why we are focused on it even from the initial design stages.
All our products undergo stringent accessibility testing to ensure sites meet WCAG and ADA standards. We also offer accessibility audits for new customers to identify areas for improvement in their existing products. Often, we even need to amend the client’s brand palette to achieve the correct colour contrast.
This audit uses WCAG’s POUR pillars (perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust) to measure how sites perform against the accessibility criteria.
Typically, we find some easy improvements that can be made, such as optimising the navigation for screen readers or adapting alt text.
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Download free whitepaperHow do you see the role of digital agencies evolving in the next 5 to 10 years?
Caroline and Andy: Increasingly our clients have internal teams that run their digital estate. Our role will be to ensure that they are at the forefront of innovation, to provide specialist expertise where they are aiming to make a step change.
We also see a large role for agencies in ensuring internal teams are set up to deliver on these large programmes, which is why we have set up a Business Architecture and Change team.
We will also continue to support our clients in product development, where an outside perspective and an affinity with the end customer are paramount.
How do you view the role of technology and technology partners in driving business success today?
Caroline and Andy: In reality, technology (AI or otherwise) is more often than not the cornerstone of business success. When harnessed properly, it can drive efficiency, foster innovation, and facilitate better customer experiences, among countless other benefits.
This means the stakes are high to get your tech choices right!
In the same way that brands turn to agency partners for their creativity, innovative mindsets, and industry knowledge, agencies like ours also need reliable, forward-thinking partners to support our delivery and meet the always-increasing demands of these clients.
We’re grateful for our partnership with Vega IT. Your technical expertise and seamless integration with our teams allow us to deliver innovative, high-quality solutions faster. This collaboration ensures we stay at the forefront of digital transformation and can consistently provide value to our clients.
What advice would you give businesses looking to maximise their digital strategies in today’s environment?
Caroline and Andy: When looking to maximise your digital strategies in today’s fast-paced environment, it’s essential to take a measured and flexible approach.
Start small – don’t try to tackle everything at once. By beginning with manageable projects, you can test ideas, learn from them, and iterate quickly. This approach not only prevents overwhelming your resources, but also allows you to achieve quick wins that build momentum and confidence within your team.
Being agile is key. Embrace composable architectures that enable you to adapt and implement changes swiftly. This flexibility means you can respond to market demands faster and see a return on investment sooner.
With composable systems, you’re not locked into one big, unwieldy solution but can instead make incremental improvements that collectively drive significant progress.
Don’t be afraid to embrace emerging technologies like AI. Being progressive in your approach can give you a competitive edge and help future-proof your business. AI offers powerful tools for personalisation, process automation, and data analysis, all of which can drive innovation and keep you ahead in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
In short, start small, stay agile, and be open to new technologies to ensure your digital strategy is both effective and forward-looking.
What’s next for you and Tangent?
Caroline and Andy: We’re gearing up for significant growth plans for 2025, so it’s great to have Vega IT support us as we grow!
There are numerous areas we will focus on:
- We foresee major advancements in our consultancy and data offerings.
- There are also some significant AI product launches planned for 2025, so watch this space.
- We are also working hard on our BCorp accreditation. We are proud that we have just appointed our first Sustainability Officer and will be working hard on our net zero commitments.
Thanks, Caroline and Andy. We are excited to see what the future holds for us and how we will shape the digital landscape together. Just like we did many times before.
