About Arcana

Independent research.
Shared perspective.

Enterprise AI intelligence, sourced from the decision makers deploying it.

Our approach

Closer to the source.
Clearer on the detail.

Arcana is a research and peer network for enterprise AI operators and decision makers. We bring firsthand practitioner experience into a shared view of adoption, spend, vendors, and strategic priorities.

The quarterly Enterprise AI Pulse™ investigates adoption, outcomes, and spend across six major categories—alongside vendor performance, switching intent, and emerging technology adoption. Members receive their AI Vital Stats™ Tear Sheet, the Pulse report, and four proprietary indices: AI Maturity, Spend, Heat, and Vendor Vulnerability. The AI Yield Index activates with a member’s second response.

Enterprise leadership and the Board use this research to evaluate their AI estate against a peer group. Quarterly execution creates a historical record for comparison, delivered from the buyer’s perspective.

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The team

Ken Male

Chief Research Officer

Mr. Male is Chief Research Officer at Arcana Research, where he creates and contextualizes data-driven research and benchmarks for the Enterprise AI Pulse™ and its proprietary indices — the AI Maturity Index™, AI Spend Index™, AI Vulnerability Index™, and AI Heat Index™ — and the wave-2 AI Yield Index™, which measures how that maturity converts into business impact.

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Across 30 years in IT Research, Benchmarking & Data — in leadership roles spanning Gartner, Giga, Apptio, and Jupiter — Mr. Male has served and advised Global 2000 leadership (spanning IT, Finance, Sourcing, Sales & Marketing), institutional investors, and technology providers. He has keynoted dozens of global events and is a regular source for CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, the Financial Times, Forbes, and InformationWeek.

In 2001 he founded TheInfoPro (TIP) with Gideon Gartner as a Board member and investor, where they pioneered factual, peer-based IT research devoid of analyst spin or bias — an approach that became known as the “Voice of the Enterprise.” The data source was personal relationships developed with thousands of G2000 IT decision makers who participated in detailed studies of key tech sectors in 6-month cycles, or “Waves,” affording unmatched historical data for comparison. TIP was acquired by S&P Global Market Intelligence. He subsequently founded spend analytics firm CXO Nexus.

Ian Kar

Managing Partner & Cofounder

Mr. Kar is Managing Partner and Cofounder of Arcana Research, where he leads product development, platform architecture, and go-to-market strategy. He designed and built the Arcana platform and its underlying research infrastructure.

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Mr. Kar has spent over a decade identifying and building at the frontier of emerging technology markets. His writing and research on fintech and enterprise technology has been published in The Atlantic, Quartz, Newsweek, American Banker, the World Economic Forum, and Stanford Business Review. He co-founded Fintech Today, a research and community platform for fintech operators and founders—with members from institutions like Goldman Sachs and Andreessen Horowitz—which was acquired in 2022. Earlier in his career, he was a product manager at Acorns, a consumer finance platform backed by PayPal and BlackRock. His work has been cited by Bloomberg Businessweek, CNBC, Barron’s, and TIME, and referenced in Morgan Stanley analyst notes.

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