about us
AI that Thinks differently
The Thought Factory is an independent AI consultancy and applied research lab based in Auckland, New Zealand.
We specialise in AI-assisted research, cognitive architecture, and strategic automation — helping organisations compress the front end of discovery and move from open-ended questions to verifiable insights in record time.
Our proprietary technology, the Adaptive Hypothesis Collider (AHC), delivers research-grade novelty with full governance and auditability, giving universities and R&D teams a faster, safer path to breakthrough innovation.
Our journey
Founded in 2009 as a business consultancy, The Thought Factory spent a decade helping companies innovate and adapt through strategic insight.
In 2019, curiosity about artificial intelligence and human creativity led to a complete pivot toward AI-driven cognition research.
After years of experimentation, the work culminated in AHC 20.6.2 — a governed AI system capable of generating original, falsifiable, and reproducible hypotheses that accelerate real-world research.
Today, AHC runs have been successfully validated in academic pilots and are now being deployed in commercial R&D programmes.
Leadership at the thought factory
Nik Nigro — Founder & AI Systems Architect
Nik is the creator of the Adaptive Hypothesis Collider (AHC) and a recognised architect of advanced cognitive-AI frameworks.
Blending backgrounds in business strategy, data analytics, and applied artificial intelligence. Since 2022, Nik has led an ongoing R&D program dedicated to advancing AI cognition, progressively refining the AHC architecture through successive builds and validation cycles; evolving it into one of the most advanced governed AI cognition systems in operation today.
He continues to lead The Thought Factory’s AI Lab, guiding partnerships with universities and commercial research teams across New Zealand and beyond.
AI-Assisted Research solutions
The Thought Factory’s AI Lab provides research acceleration as a service.
Each AHC run generates structured research dossiers containing high-novelty hypotheses, operationalisation pathways, and a Run Ledger verifying the reasoning process.
For researchers, it means a compressed discovery timeline and clearer routes to funding or publication.
For businesses, it means faster R&D decisions backed by transparent, evidence-driven intelligence.
Shaping the Future of discovery
At The Thought Factory, we believe the future of innovation lies in collaboration between human curiosity and governed machine cognition.
Our mission is simple:
“To make advanced reasoning accessible, auditable, and practical — so that ideas move from possibility to proof faster than ever before.”
