Start: Q1 2027
Publication: Q2 2027
Region: Global Research
Authors: Kevin Petrie
Preparing and Delivering Data for AI: Fueling the Agentic Enterprise
Adoption Maturity, Production Challenges and Best Practices
The breakneck pace of innovation forces AI adopters to get serious about foundational aspects of data management. But they struggle to keep up with dynamic AI projects, proliferating data sources and rising governance challenges.
This BARC study takes the pulse on data management and measures how much AI adopters have matured since our first survey two years ago. We benchmark leading adopters against followers on data quality, lineage, privacy, security and readiness of structured and unstructured data. To separate durable trends from passing hype, we identify two-year shifts in use cases, tooling and skills.
Data, AI, IT and business leaders should read this report to learn:
- What separates AI Leaders from followers, and how the followers must adapt.
- Which data and governance controls agents need before autonomy can safely scale.
- How to align architecture, hosting and tooling choices with AI risk, cost and performance.