About the Initiative
The Structural Thinking Research Initiative is a developing research effort examining how thinking arises across biological, organizational, technological, and hybrid systems. Its goal is to build a testable framework and bring researchers from different disciplines into a shared inquiry. Criticism, replication, and evidence requiring revision are welcome.
William Ammerman
Founder, Structural Thinking Research Initiative
William Ammerman is an award-winning author, educator, public speaker, and digital media veteran whose work explores artificial intelligence, human–AI systems, organizational intelligence, and emerging technologies. He is the author of The Invisible Brand: Marketing in the Age of Automation, Big Data, and Machine Learning (McGraw-Hill), winner of the 2019 Marketing & Sales Book of the Year, and a frequent speaker on artificial intelligence and the changing relationship between humans, organizations, and technology.
Ammerman spent more than 30 years at the forefront of digital media, advertising, and technology, holding senior leadership positions across the industry before turning his focus increasingly toward teaching, research, and the societal implications of artificial intelligence.
He is currently developing Structural Thinking, a theoretical framework for understanding how structure gives rise to thinking across scales and substrates. His research examines the structural conditions under which thinking emerges, how thinking structures interact and couple across humans, organizations, and machines, and how differences in structure shape the thinking they produce.
Ammerman teaches at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, where his courses span artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, marketing, and advertising.