Exadel Acquires Tangent to Add Experience Design

According to The Next Web, Exadel, the Tampa-based, Sun Capital-owned software-development and consulting firm, has acquired London-based digital experience consultancy Tangent; deal terms were not disclosed. Per The Next Web, Tangent will operate under its existing brand inside Exadel's Digital Experiences practice. Tangent chief executive Leigh Gammons will move into a managing director and senior vice president role to lead the business, The Next Web reports. The Next Web quotes Exadel COO James Dalziel: "Brands increasingly win or lose based on the AI-driven digital experiences they provide to customers." The Next Web also quotes Gammons: "Companies are demanding more than great digital experiences. They need to provide experiences that can constantly evolve and drive measurable outcomes."

Per The Next Web, Exadel markets what it calls AI-native engineering, data infrastructure, applications, and back-end work, across a headcount of more than 2,000 in the US, Europe and LATAM. Tangent is described by The Next Web as a boutique digital agency founded in 2001 with a London headquarters, a Newcastle office, and a delivery footprint that includes Spain, South Africa, Poland, Egypt, and Pakistan. The Next Web names Tangent clients including SAP, IWG and UK Power Networks, and cites New Balance and Vodafone in the Exadel release.

Editorial analysis: Companies that combine backend AI engineering with front-end product and design capabilities often aim to reduce friction between model outputs and customer-facing interfaces. For practitioners, this pattern highlights the operational gap between building AI systems and integrating them into coherent user experiences; teams responsible for UX, product, and MarTech typically need earlier and closer collaboration with data and ML engineering.

Editorial analysis: The deal is characteristic of a wave of acquisitions in which larger engineering-focused consultancies add specialist design and experience firms to offer end-to-end transformation services. For enterprise buyers, a single-vendor contract that spans data infrastructure to UX can simplify procurement and delivery, but it also concentrates vendor choice. For practitioners evaluating vendors, expect more bundled offerings that combine model engineering, data platforms, and experience design.

• •Whether Tangent retains distinct delivery and governance processes inside Exadel or is integrated into shared engineering pipelines, as this will affect collaboration between product/design and ML/data teams.
• •How Exadel frames and prices combined AI-native engineering plus experience design offerings to enterprise clients named in the release, such as New Balance and Vodafone.
• •Any future statements or case studies showing measurable outcomes from joint AI-engineering and UX engagements; The Next Web notes the companies' quoted emphasis on continuously optimisable experiences.