Senior Director, Analyst - Physical AI and Autonomous Technologies (Remote Europe)

Gartner Analysts are industry thought leaders creating insights, market predictions, and best practices for leading organizations. A Senior Director in Physical AI and Autonomous Technologies leads in innovation, combining hands-on experimentation with strategic insight to advance emerging technologies, advising senior executives on Physical AI strategies and investments.

Location: Remote (US)

Responsibilities

• Develop insights and frameworks for Physical AI and autonomous systems, enabling enterprises to orchestrate multi‑modal AI, polyfunctional robotics, and advanced physical and 3D simulations.
• Advise enterprise leaders on evolving their operating models from static, siloed data architectures into dynamic 'knowledge cores' that connect data, analytics, and decision tools.
• Create innovative, thought provoking, and highly leveraged “must-have insights” content.
• Develop new insights and ideas through thought leadership and offer compelling, actionable approaches to client's needs and requests.
• Develop in-depth analysis to identify the root cause of a client’s barriers or overall needs and reframe thinking to drive strategy forward.
• Demonstrate thought leadership in establishing Insights positions across a team of analysts.
• Bring provocative, independent insights to Gartner leaders that can evolve the course of a research agenda.
• Research, analyze and predict market trends and shifts to provide clients and vendors with actionable insights.
• Provide clients and prospects with actionable advice via virtual or face-to-face interactions.
• Create and deliver high value presentation materials for Gartner events, industry and professional association conferences, and client briefings.
• Support BTI and Sales: Provide sales support serving as voice of the market to help Insights teams create content and to drive engagement with clients.
• Provide high quality and timely content peer review.
• Build credibility as an industry expert to represent Gartner insights, methodology and strategy.
• Actively participate in innovation, ideation, and research discussions and collaborate effectively with peers in the Insights community.
• Identify research process improvements or develop new processes that help the team and BTI provide excellent service delivery.
• Be a mentor and a coach by supporting more junior team members.
• Be client-centric while actively seeking to help clients engage regularly and often with Gartner insights and interactions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience; Graduate degree preferred.
• 12+ years of relevant field or industry experience.
• Proven Physical AI practitioner and executive advisor, with experience deploying AI in real‑world, edge and low-latency environments, and advising CIOs, CTOs, and AI leaders on Physical AI strategy, investment trade‑offs, risk, and value realization across enterprise value chains.
• Familiarity across Physical AI architectures beyond LLMs, spanning world models, physics‑based simulation, sensor fusion, IoT, and Earth intelligence to enable real‑time, simulation‑to‑reality decision‑making.
• Strong ecosystem, market and future-focused perspective, with credibility across vendors, platforms, infrastructure, and standards, and the ability to challenge assumptions, reframe business problems, and define forward‑looking research agendas.
• Demonstrate executive presence; can immediately establish credibility with executives and additional stakeholders.
• Strong organizational skills; ability to work under tight deadlines and produce high quality deliverables.
• Demonstrate excellence in research and writing ability.
• Strong written and verbal proficiency, analytical and presentation skills; ability to engage clients and respond effectively to questions.
• Proficient in analyzing and synthesizing data; can effectively apply patterns and frameworks while drawing and defending conclusions to client challenges.
• Strong communication skills - able to explain complex concepts concisely and simply.
• Subject matter expertise; comfortable presenting at large and small-scale speaking engagements.
• Strong business and financial acumen.
• Deep knowledge of the global and competitive landscape within subject area as well as the interplay in that market.
• Ability to work independently, while also being intrinsically motivated to collaborate across teams and support the workflow of others, in a multicultural global team.
• Learning agile and adept with navigating highly matrixed environments.
• Ability to represent Gartner's research methodology and strategies effectively at all levels.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 25% (where applicable).

Benefits

• Gartner offers world-class benefits, highly competitive compensation and disproportionate rewards for top performers.
• In our hybrid work environment, we provide the flexibility and support for you to thrive — working virtually when it's productive to do so and getting together with colleagues in a vibrant community that is purposeful, engaging and inspiring.