As AI adoption skyrockets, how can organizations harness its power responsibly? AI promises enhanced decision-making and customer interactions, but it comes with ethical, compliance, and infrastructure risks. Consequently, AI governance is crucial to address these risks. In response, many businesses turn to their established data governance (DG), aiming to leverage existing controls and procedures. However, AI introduces […]
Large Language Models 101
Large language models (LLMs), built on the transformer architecture of deep learning, are designed to process very high volumes of textual data at a high speed. LLMs also have the power to generate new text and interact with human language innovatively. Training on different types of data, including articles, books, periodicals, and websites, LLMs develop […]
Data Product vs. Data as a Product (DaaP): Understanding the Difference
Data quality (DQ), which ensures that data is fit for business and consumer needs, remains a significant challenge and is growing more complex. According to a dbt Labs 2024 report, 57% of survey respondents identified data quality as a challenging aspect to data preparation, up from 41% in 2022. To address these data quality challenges, companies increasingly […]
Building an Enterprise Data Strategy: What, Why, How
No matter how good you feel about the reliability of your company’s data operations, you can’t help wondering on occasion what the chances are that your firm will be one of the victims of the next data outage, malware scourge, or cyberattack. This is especially the case if your job entails ensuring the availability of your organization’s […]
Women in Data: Meet Enterprise Data Architecture Manager Shannon Hughes
The latest installment in our Q&A series with women leaders in data features Shannon Hughes, enterprise data architecture manager at ExxonMobil’s Central Data Office. (Read our previous Q&A here.) Shannon Hughes became fascinated with data and technology as a kid, inspired by her dad – a technical data analyst for the U.S. Air Force. She now […]
How to Build a Data Governance Program in 90 Days
For many people in business, the mention of a data governance program evokes excessive red tape, bureaucratic drag, and, most of all, outsiders meddling in daily operations. “What is the preconceived notion about data governance? We are the police, we tell you no, we tell you to stop, we slow you down,” said Sherry Hidalgo, director of […]
How to Govern a Business Glossary
Many people see the dictionary as a thing of unquestionable authority, with words and meanings that rarely change. Likewise, in corporate culture, business leaders often mistake the business glossary – a collection of data-related terms and definitions used within an organization – as being static, straightforward, and simple to develop and maintain. Timothy Mulholland, associate manager and […]
What Is Active Metadata and Why Does It Matter?
Metadata is like the secret sauce of the internet. You type a word or phrase in a search engine, press enter, and the information you’re looking for appears (usually). An action that once seemed “indistinguishable from magic,” to quote the third of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws, is now as commonplace as heating up leftovers in […]
Generative AI vs. Traditional AI
Traditional AI, also known as “classical AI,” is known for being rule-based and dependent on stringent programming for its intended output. These techniques revolve around the manipulation of symbols and logical reasoning to perform tasks. Key methodologies include rule-based systems, where knowledge is encoded in the form of “if-then” statements, enabling machines to make decisions […]
Choosing a Data Quality Tool: What, Why, How
Data-driven organizations are in a race to collect the information that modern analytics techniques rely on to generate insights and guide business decisions. The ever-growing flow of data into business systems challenges companies to devise new techniques for ensuring the quality of the data as its quantity skyrockets. Data quality tool vendors are rising to […]