Trish Uhl
Founder & Principal Consultant of Owl’s Ledge, Trish is an AI product leader and systems architect — three decades of building the technology that changes how work gets done, from enterprise databases and interactive state machines to predictive analytics and, today, production multi-agent AI systems.
By day she ships enterprise generative AI at a Fortune 300 financial services firm: an AI Product Manager on the firm’s inaugural Generative AI Enterprise Solutions team, she built the business case for its first generative AI application, drove it into production, and pioneered the AI evaluation (TEVV) and Evaluation-Driven Development practices that keep subsequent generative AI apps trustworthy at scale — governance, observability, and tokenomics included. Not theoretical. Operational.
Her edge is the discipline most AI product leaders lack: she’s also a former learning and talent development executive and learning engineer — someone who instruments the human side of the system with analytics to measure whether behavior and business results actually change.
She doesn’t just ship the agents; she engineers the humans-and-agents system around them — benefits realization that shows up as positive people impact and measurable ROI, not vanity adoption metrics.
“Most AI initiatives don’t fail because the models aren’t good
enough — they fail because human systems weren’t designed to
collaborate with them.
I don’t just advise on this problem. I solve it.”
— Trish Uhl
Three disciplines, one operator
Most AI product leaders have one of these. Trish operates across all three — which is why the systems she ships actually change how people work.
AI engineering & product
Ships production LLM and agentic systems — multi-agent, multi-RAG, and agent operating models — and manages them as products. SAFe 6 Product Owner / Product Manager.
Pioneered AI evaluation and TEVV through a repeatable Evaluation-Driven Development approach spanning AI observability, tokenomics, and cost analysis to keep solutions trustworthy and commercially viable at enterprise scale.
Measures success as benefits realization — measurable ROI and positive people impact, not vanity adoption metrics.
Human × AI collaboration
Microsoft Certified AI Transformation Leader and AI Business Professional — both earned in the beta cohort, among the first globally.
Moves organizations from experimentation to everyday, trustworthy Human × AI collaboration.
Learning & talent development
30+ years in learning and people and learning analytics. Trish calls herself a learning engineer — instrumenting a learning system with AI and advanced analytics to measure behavior change and real business impact.
Five eras, one pattern
Master the era’s dominant technology. Apply it to human capability. Repeat.
Non-deterministic systems
Managing non-deterministic systems since before software: her first were horses. Apple IIe text parsers, BBS networks — and an early mentor rescuing DOD embedded systems set the IEEE-grade bar for engineering rigor.
Databases, networks, and early digital work
Certified DB2 DBA for Xerox, building data capture for the world’s first loyalty cards and early e-commerce shopping carts. Deployed e-learning across 1,600 Manpower offices in 1995 — while the LANs were still being wired.
Drove the dawn of e-discovery, online legal research, and court e-filing during high-stakes litigation.
State machines and global capability systems
Directed the Midwest’s only authorized Macromedia training center — instructional state machines, the direct predecessors of agentic workflows.
Orchestrated global supply-chain migration inside Tellabs’ Transformation Management Office and pioneered the global competency model for the Certified Professional in Learning & Performance.
That model became the engine of a five-continent talent-deployment business serving Hilton, Saudi Aramco, MTN, and PETRONAS, including standing up the teams that launched the Conrad Dubai.
Measuring learning and behavior change
Adopted IEEE Learning Engineering the year it launched in 2018 and deployed it at Mars Inc.’s global farm-to-fork traceability initiative.
Partnered with Predictive Learning Analytics creator Ken Phillips to operationalize the discipline worldwide, including a two-year regulatory-grade initiative through UK water deregulation.
The work earned ATD’s first-ever Excellence in Practice citation for analytics.
Production AI and forward-deployed capability
CIPD People Analytics Expert-in-Residence, co-creating its global accredited programme. Moderated the DataX 2020 panel evaluating GPT-2, then co-architected Coach M’s transformation from rules-based software to a hybrid generative AI Digital Coach.
Now shipping enterprise agentic AI in production, defining Evaluation-Driven Development — evaluation, observability, tokenomics, and measurable ROI included — and developing Forward-Deployed AI talent.
Mission-centered AI capability
Trish’s framework for building AI capability the way it should be built — an exoskeleton that amplifies the mission and keeps people at the center. Three tools form a capability loop, shared freely under CC BY-NC 4.0.
SCAFFOLD
An eight-step method to design AI — including agents — into existing work, mission-first.
Surface, Clarify, Augment or Delegate, Frame, Facilitate, Observe, Loop, and Diffuse.
CAMC
One honest evaluation test per AI use, built for agentic AI: Capacity, Ability, Mission, and Control.
Can we see, understand, and stop an agent that acts on its own?
Maturity Roadmap
Where you are and where next — from Awareness to Responsible Experimentation to Workflow Integration to Mission Amplification, where AI becomes a continually evaluated capability multiplier.
Credentialed at the frontier — and still shipping into production. The proof, not just the pitch.
Microsoft Certified: AI Transformation Leader & AI Business Professional — earned in the beta cohort, among the first globally · PMP since 2003 · SAFe 6 POPM · CPLP · Brinkerhoff HPLJ · SolutionPeople Certified Creativity & Innovation Facilitator
Former minority owner and Chief Technology Advisor, Coach M — one of the world’s first enterprise AI coaches — co-pioneering its advanced analytics with founder Emma Weber to drive measurable behavior change.
Acquired in 2025 by David Goldsmith, co-founder of the ICF and the Institute of Coaching at Harvard.
Creator of the Learning AI community · Co-creator of SkillsTrek, an AI-powered learning experience and book series.
Founder and Principal Consultant, Owl’s Ledge — advising HR, L&D, and enterprise leaders worldwide on AI transformation and workforce readiness.
Adaptive Humans + AI Agents
Sink, Swim or Swarm · Coming July 2026
Trish’s forthcoming book on how agentic AI reshapes work — and how L&D and leaders must architect human + AI collaboration.
Its central frame, Sink, Swim, or Swarm, threads signature models throughout: the Crawl → Walk → Run → Fly → Soar maturity path, Superworkers → Superjobs → Superteams, and a Monday-Morning Action Plan for leaders.
Selected publications & recognition
CIPD People Analytics Accredited Programme
Co-creator and Expert-in-Residence · 2020–2022
Foundations of People Metrics and Analytics
Contributing author with Emma Weber · Van Schaik, 2023
Training Magazine APEX Awards, Best Practice
Generative capability academy at a Fortune 300 financial services firm · 2025
ATD's Handbook for Measuring & Evaluating Training, Second Edition
Author of its only generative AI chapter · Association for Talent Development Press, 2025
The Two Mountains of AI
Original research with Emma Weber · 2026
AB-731 AI Transformation Leader — Scenario Lab Study Guide
Author; scenario-based preparation for the Microsoft certification she holds from its inaugural beta cohort · July 2026
Adaptive Humans + AI Agents: Sink, Swim or Swarm
Author · July 2026
Interviews & features
Sought out as an AI-in-learning expert since 2018 — in the trade press and on the field’s leading podcasts.
Modern Learning in the Age of Analytics and Intelligent Machines
David Green / UNLEASH · Interview · 2018
How AI and Machine Learning Help in Upskilling Employees
TechTarget · Featured interview · 2018
Launching Learning Engineering at Mars
Learning Uncut · Episode 48 · 2020
Data & Analytics in L&D
The L&D Podcast · 2020
Workplace Learning: A Complete Guide for Businesses
TechTarget · Featured expert commentary · 2023
AI and the Future of L&D with Trish Uhl
iVentiv · Interview · 2020
My mission is personal: to equip and empower those who equip and empower others — so people flourish, organizations thrive, and together we create a world that works better.
