Updated January 6, 2026
Data & Analytics Predictions for 2026As 2025 comes to a close, one thing is clear: the experimentation phase of GenAI in data and analytics is ending. In its place, enterprises are entering a more pragmatic era focused on trust, governance, economics, and tangible business outcomes.…
Updated January 6, 2026
Looking Back at 2025: Rating My Predictions on AI, Semantics, and Data DemocratizationLast year, I made a set of predictions for data and analytics trends for 2025: "The Future of Data & Analytics: Trends to Look For." Now that the year has wrapped, it’s time to put those forecasts to the test…
Updated December 18, 2025
Snowflake Venture’s Strategic Equity Investment in AtScale: The Strategic Play for Semantics in the EnterpriseThis isn’t about funding. It’s about control. After 15 years helping enterprises modernize analytics, I’ve learned to ignore the size of the check. What matters is why it was written. Snowflake Ventures led AtScale’s largest equity financing to date. But…
Updated December 18, 2025
Why Snowflake’s Strategic Equity Investment in AtScale Validates the Open Semantic FutureI've spent more than two decades watching the data industry cycle through architectural shifts. Each wave promised to solve this fundamental challenge: delivering consistent, governed analytics that actually scale with the business. Most failed because they optimized for a single…
Updated December 15, 2025
Universal Semantic Layer and AI Agents: What Enterprises Need to KnowHow can enterprises prepare for a world where AI agents, not just humans, are analyzing data and making recommendations? Every data and analytics leader is grappling with this question, and the answer lies in a universal semantic layer. In my…
Updated December 10, 2025
AI Without Semantics Is a Costly Risk: Key Takeaways from EDM Association WebinarHow do you move from experimental AI pilots to production systems you can trust? That was the central question Kyle Morton and I discussed on last month’s EDM Association webinar. The data management community is keenly aware of what’s at…
Updated December 9, 2025
From Governance to Guidance: The Next Phase of AI ReadinessAI Adoption Has Outpaced AI Readiness Every enterprise I talk to right now is chasing the same goal: operationalizing AI agents and agentic analytics. The enthusiasm is there. The budgets are there. The pilots are running. But the confidence? That's…
Updated December 2, 2025
The State of the Semantic Layer: 2025 in ReviewI've been building data systems long enough to recognize when an architectural shift is real versus when it's just market noise. 2025 was the year semantics moved from "nice-to-have" to "foundational infrastructure." This wasn't driven by vendor messaging or analyst…
Updated November 17, 2025
How a Semantic Engine Reduces AI Query Costs Without Sacrificing PerformanceReal-time AI analytics feels like the future: instant insights, natural conversation, decisions without delay. But behind the scenes, that future comes with a big catch: every AI query costs money, and those costs compound fast. Many of our customers see…
Updated November 12, 2025
Why 57% of Data Leaders Are About to Make a Costly Mistake (And How to Avoid It)Here's a wake-up call that should concern every data leader: while 50% of enterprises have invested in semantic layers, 57% of those using vendor-native implementations are already considering platform changes this year, according to Hex's State of Data Teams report.…
