Why I Built Autom Insights

February 22, 2026
News & Updates
3 min read

The Story Behind the Data

I’ve never been very good at pretending things make sense when they don’t or nodding along when something looks clear but isn’t. I’ve realized over the years that what I care about most isn’t data. It’s the story the data is trying to tell. I’m not comfortable making decisions based on numbers I don’t trust or reports that have to be explained away. I want to know what actually changed, what’s working, what isn’t, and what we’re learning next.

That instinct has followed me into every role I’ve had. More than once, I was hired to do one job and ended up building the visibility system anyway  because once you see that the work and the results aren’t connected by a clear narrative, you can’t unsee it.

The Pattern I Couldn’t Ignore

In almost every place I’ve worked — manufacturing, public systems, private companies — there’s a moment that always shows up. Good people are doing meaningful work. Teams are putting in real effort. Money is being spent with the right intentions.

And then someone asks a completely reasonable question:

Why did we invest here?
What changed because of it?
What do we do next?

That’s when the room gets quiet. Not because no one cares. Not because nothing is happening. But because no one can show the story clearly.

The numbers exist, but they live in different places. Reports have to be rebuilt every time. Leaders are asked to stand behind data they don’t fully trust. Everyone knows the work matters, but connecting effort to outcome takes more time than it should  and sometimes more confidence than people actually have.

After seeing that enough times, I stopped thinking of it as a reporting issue. It’s a visibility issue. We’re asking organizations to make high-stakes decisions without a system that can consistently show what’s true. And that’s also the moment where I started to become cautious about how people talk about AI. Because AI can’t solve that problem.

Why AI Isn’t the Starting Point

I’m building with AI. I believe in it. It’s going to change how all of us work. But AI doesn’t create clarity. It only accelerates whatever is already there. If your data definitions don’t match across departments, if your processes live in people’s heads, if finance and operations tell slightly different versions of reality, AI doesn’t fix that. It just gives you faster answers to the wrong questions.

You can automate a workflow. You can generate a narrative. You can build a beautiful dashboard. But you can’t automate trust. And speed without trust doesn’t help anyone, it just makes confusion move faster.

Where the Work Really Starts

Most people assume this kind of transformation starts with a new tool. It doesn’t. It starts with structure. It starts with taking scattered data and bringing it into a single, consistent foundation, agreeing on what things actually mean, and building reporting that reflects how decisions are really made, not how we wish they were made. 

Once that foundation is in place, AI becomes incredibly powerful. It can turn trusted data into usable insight, automate the work that slows teams down, and generate narratives that actually mean something. At that point it’s no longer AI for the sake of innovation, it’s AI in service of clarity.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about technology. Every organization is already telling that story through its data. Most just don’t have a system that lets them see it. That’s the work behind Autom Insights.

We are building the structure that makes the truth visible so the work that’s already meaningful can finally be understood, trusted, and used to move forward.

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Thor Muller

Visionary AI & Business Strategist

Thor is the Co-founder and CEO of White Rabbit, a bioregional accelerator and community space in Ashland, Oregon that supports entrepreneurs and technologists across domains well-suited to Southern Oregon. He co-founded the Rogue Valley AI Lab and Rova, an AI platform for the Experience Economy that helps businesses plan and connect with audiences through live events and other programming.

These ventures build on a career defined by community-powered technology. Thor is a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits — including Get Satisfaction, a pioneering customer community platform acquired by Sprinklr. He founded the Internet practice at renowned product design studio Frog Design, which acquired his pioneering web firm, Prophet Communications, and went on to serve as Entrepreneur-in-Residence and AI Strategist at Mach49, where he set up and ran multiple incubators, accelerators, and venture competitions for Global 1000 firms.

Beyond his own ventures, Thor advises companies spanning technology media, legal tech, and renewable energy — including VentureBeat, Pacerpro, and Zola Electric — and previously advised hardware incubator Highway 1 and Code for America. He is a New York Times bestselling author whose work consistently lives at the intersection of technology, social impact, and culture — driven by a belief that practical innovation should deepen human connection and regional resilience.

Aaron Moffatt

Head of Technology

Aaron is a leader at the crossroads of emerging technologies, data systems, and community transformation. He has spent 20 years at the intersection of data, visualization, and emerging technology, turning complex, fragmented data into intuitive interactive experiences.

As a full-stack architect and AI systems designer, he has led projects spanning scientific data visualization, GPU-accelerated rendering, and large-scale data pipelines. This has included working with partners locally (ScienceWorks, White Rabbit) and globally (Apple, Tableau, HTC, Factset).

His work in flow cytometry delivered tools that let labs visually analyze billions of data points at a time, and as CTO of Immersion Analytics he continues to build frameworks for exploring massive datasets in immersive 3D environments.

Working with Autom Insights, he designs and builds infrastructure that ingests raw data, transforms it, and delivers it as clear, actionable insight.

James G. Fong

Strategic Consultant / Systems Transformation Leader

Jim is a strategic advisor specializing in systems integration, organizational and community learning, leadership development, and innovation. He works within and across the private, public, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors, forging high-impact partnerships that deliver measurable organizational and community-wide results.

A nationally recognized leader in the applied use of longitudinal data analytics, Jim works with organizations and communities to strengthen how they measure, manage, and accelerate impact. He integrates real-time, data-informed decision-making into the core of strategy and governance embedding adaptive learning systems from boardrooms and policy tables to executive teams, middle managers, and frontline staff. By transforming data from a retrospective reporting tool into a forward-looking engine for alignment and performance excellence, his work helps establish a higher standard for organizational effectiveness – one grounded in continuous learning, shared ownership, and sustained system-level transformation.

Through his work with Autom Insight, Jim leverages advanced analytics platforms to translate complex data into actionable insight. He partners with clients to align data strategy with vision, mission, strategic priorities, outcomes, and performance indicators – ensuring that insight informs strategy, strategy drives execution, and execution delivers impact.

Tanner Ulrey

Brand & Marketing Coordinator

Tanner is a Southern Oregon native with a background spanning business, design, and data-driven problem solving. His work helps organizations make sense of complex information – through scalable design systems, structured data models, and dashboards that turn data into clear, actionable narratives.

At Autom Insights, Tanner translates complex business and communications requirements into clean, functional deliverables. He brings a systems-oriented mindset to every engagement, blending design precision with analytical rigor to produce solutions that are consistent, usable, and built to last.

A graduate of the University of Providence with a BS in Business Administration and academic honors, Tanner also competed as a collegiate wrestler – an experience that shaped the discipline, resilience, and competitive focus he brings to every client relationship.

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