Mar 4, 2025

Survey: 86% of Companies Focus on Data Unification for AI March 4, 2025 Survey finds a strong need for data unification, multi-cloud adoption, AI-driven transformation, and metadata control as organizations seek to maximize their data’s value A new industry survey from Dremio finds a growing urgency for data unification, AI-ready data architectures, and governance enhancements as organizations try to keep pace with evolving demands and prepare data for AI. Surveying 101 data and technology leaders across industries, the latest Dremio-sponsored report The State of Data Unification, AI Readiness, and Governance in 2025 underscores the increasing reliance on multi-cloud data platforms, open table formats, and metadata control as enterprises navigate the challenges of modern data management. According to the findings, nearly all (86%) of organizations plan to prioritize data unification efforts in the next year leveraging strategies such as API integration layers (80%), data lake/lakehouse architectures (77%), and enterprise data warehouses (72%) to break down silos and improve data accessibility. High-quality, well-governed, AI-ready data is also a strategic priority, as enterprises accelerate their AI and machine learning (ML) initiatives. More than one in four (28%) of respondents said improving data access is crucial for faster AI development, while 39% prioritize self-service data access to help data teams scale and empower business users. Governance, compliance, and metadata ownership have emerged as critical concerns as well with 88% of data leaders stating that retaining metadata ownership is very or extremely important. Open table formats such as Delta Lake (66%), Apache Hudi (65%), and Apache Iceberg (53%) are also gaining traction as organizations seek flexible, vendor-agnostic data architectures. “Demand for unified data platforms has reached a tipping point, with organizations actively seeking solutions that simplify data governance, analytics, and AI enablement,” said Tomer Shiran, founder of Dremio. “Nearly all respondents (99%) stated that they would invest in a technology solution that makes it easier to create, govern, and consume data products, and (98%) stated they would be interested in demoing a platform that unifies and accelerates data access. This clearly indicates that the demand for unified data solutions has never been stronger, signaling a major shift toward platforms that eliminate complexity and empower data teams to drive business transformation at scale.”Performance bottlenecks, data silos, and governance gaps are major hurdles for enterprises looking to scale their AI initiatives and maximize data efficiency. A recent study by Gartner found similar results. As stated in the Gartner Chief Data and Analytics Officer Agenda Survey for 2024, 78% of respondents indicated they are making changes or overhauling their approach in D&A architectures and design patterns.1 Driven by the demand for modern D&A architectures and for particular reasons such as the drive to generative AI (GenAI), many data management leaders are moving their D&A architecture to the lakehouse,” Gartner, Follow These Best Practices to Migrate to the Lakehouse, 2025 To learn more: Visit Dremio at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit booth # 103 which is being held on March 3-5th in Orlando, FLA. Apply to attend this invitation only panel discussion with Dremio founder, Tomer Shiran, Aviad Harell, Managing Partner at Team8, Barr Moses, co-founder & CEO, Monte Carlo and moderator Yoni Leitersdorf, co-founder & CEO of SolidData here. Download the full survey results here. GlobeNewswire GlobeNewswire is one of the world's largest newswire distribution networks, specializing in the delivery of corporate press releases financial disclosures and multimedia content to the media, investment community, individual investors and the general public. previous post