Dremio Report: 86% of Organizations Focusing on Data Unification for AI Readiness

As data-driven decision-making accelerates, businesses must look to prioritize data unification, AI readiness, and governance to stay competitive. However, fragmented or unstructured data infrastructures make it harder to harness data.

One of the key challenges for businesses is siloed data across multiple platforms, systems, and departments. Without a unified data strategy, organizations struggle to gather insights, suffer from operational inefficiencies, and face heightened security and compliance risks.

Recognizing the importance of unified data, a growing number of organizations are seeking solutions to integrate their data across platforms, with 86% prioritizing unification in the next year, according to a Dremio report released today.

The most popular approaches to achieving this include API integration layers (80%), data lake/lakehouse architectures (77%), and enterprise data warehouses (72%). All these strategies are aimed at breaking down silos and enhancing data accessibility.

According to Dremio, data unification is no longer optional for businesses, it’s become a necessity. As data environments grow more complex, businesses must unify their data to stay competitive. Equally important is having AI-ready data. Organizations recognize that accessible and high-quality data is the foundation for AI success. More than one in four (28%) of respondents said improving data access is important for faster AI development.

To further support AI initiatives, 14% of the organizations plan to create AI-ready data products, while 39% aim to have more self-service capabilities to help them scale data teams and facilitate business users.

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These findings are part of Dremio’s The State of Data Unification, AI Readiness, and Governance in 2025 report, which is based on a survey of over 100 data and technology leaders across industries. The report provides insights into the evolving priorities and challenges faced by data and technology leaders.

The findings show that governance, compliance, and metadata control are now top priorities, with 88% of data leaders emphasizing the importance of retaining metadata ownership. Meanwhile, open table formats, such as Delta Lake (66%), Apache Hudi (65%), and Apache Iceberg (53%), are gaining popularity as organizations pursue flexible and vendor-neutral data architectures.

Despite progress in data technologies, organizations continue to face major challenges in effectively managing their data platforms. The survey’s findings reveal that the top hurdles in data infrastructure management include performance and scalability issues, complexity of data pipelines, and security and governance concerns.

Several studies have shown that data management will be key for AI success in 2025. Companies investing in unified and high-quality data will be best positioned to succeed in AI-driven initiatives.

Dremio’s report indicates a strong push toward data unification, multi-cloud adoption, AI-driven transformation, and metadata control as organizations seek to maximize their data’s value. Companies are not just upgrading technology, they’re rethinking how they handle data at every level.

“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.”

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More organizations are adopting flexible deployment models that mix cloud and on-premises systems. About 43% use multi-cloud environments, 42% take a hybrid approach, and only 2% rely entirely on on-premises infrastructure. This shift highlights the need for interoperability and vendor-agnostic solutions to streamline data access across different environments.

Dremio referenced a recent Gartner study that aligns with some of its key findings. In the Gartner Chief Data and Analytics Officer Agenda Survey for 2024, 78% of respondents shared that their organizations are making significant changes to their approach for data and analytics (D&A) architectures and design patterns.

Another Gartner survey revealed that many Chief Data and Analytics Officers (CDAOs) face challenges in measuring the impact of their data and AI initiatives. These studies underscore the pressing need to modernize data architectures to enhance analytics and AI performance.

Dremio predicts that data unification, AI readiness, governance, and scalability are expected to remain as industry-defining trends in 2025. Companies that invest in flexible, scalable, and interoperable data platforms will be better positioned to overcome performance challenges, address security concerns, and eliminate data silos.

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