What is Data Fabric, and what does it have to do with AI?
When you boil down the benefits of AI, you could summarise them as
- helping people do things more efficiently
- helping people do things they otherwise couldn’t
If you were to summarise the impact that Data Fabric can have, you might say
- it makes data accessible
- it keeps data clean, consistent, accurate and timely
Because data is what fuels AI, it’s obvious how Data Fabric complements it. However, AI returns the favour, because it takes that clean and accessible data and democratises it, which benefits and empowers your whole organisation and everyone in it.
What is Data Fabric?
Data Fabric is a data management architecture that governs metadata, master data, data integration and data delivery.
It is not a single tool, but an approach that uses a combination of systems, principles, and techniques to eliminate data silos and make reliable data available to the programmes and people that need it.
Ultimately, it means people can make more decisions, better and faster, reducing the ‘time to value’ for new ideas.
How do AI and Data Fabric relate to each other?
By eliminating data silos and preserving the integrity of data, Data Fabric provides the fuel that AI needs to operate safely and effectively. In turn, AI can power some of the tools that truly unlock that data’s power.
Take, for example, data platforms like Microsoft Fabric, which can:
- Use AI and machine learning to help unlock insights
- Help to create data visualisations for powerful data storytelling
- Ingest, index and partition data sources and formats, flagging anomalies if necessary
One powerful illustration of the power of the AI and Data Fabric partnership is report-generation. Someone without coding skills may have had to request a data report from someone who could programme one. However, conversational AI and Data Fabric, can understand a verbal instruction to the programme, explaining what they want the report to cover, and it could generate that report for them.
Not only does that save the individual and the programmer time, but it instils a confidence that the data is accessible, reliable and accessible to everyone. Those who are not accustomed to using and interrogating data will start being able to use it to make decisions and business cases and will inevitably see better outcomes as a result of making more data-driven choices.
How to prepare your Data Fabric and your business for AI
If you need to build a Data Fabric, here are the most common obstacles that you will need to remove:
- Poor data quality. It doesn’t matter if the data is accessible if it is inaccurate and untrustworthy.
- Poor Data culture. If people don’t value or respect data, then they will not use it when it becomes accessible and poor practices will likely sabotage it.
- Poor metadata. Data requires context in order to be valuable. Data Fabric relies on metadata (information about data) in order to tell a story and make data searchable
- Poor Master Data Management (MDM). MDM ensures that there is a single version of the truth (SVT) and that anyone who looks for data finds accurate, complete and timely information.
The first step in unlocking AI’s potential is to establish what kind of relationship your organisation currently has with it, including your:
- experience and literacy with AI
- knowledge of the types of AI and automation that exist
- knowledge of best practice when engaging with or using AI
- understanding where automation, LLMs, and NLP are already functioning
- appreciation of the risks associated with AI (bias, security, intellectual property etc.)
Why take an assessment?
- Assess the risk of shadow AI — AI use that is unauthorised or unnoticed
- AI is too powerful to use without thoroughly understanding it (and its risks)
- Understand the applications you have and the ones you need, optimising your investment
Agile are in the rare position of having implemented Microsoft Fabric at enterprise level and having designed AI and Machine Learning models for national and multinational companies.
Our unique, practical, real-world understanding of the regulatory and data landscape means we are perfectly placed to deliver the tools that unlock your data’s power.
To explore the data solutions that will transform your data and your business, call 01908 010618.