Tech News
65% OF ANALYSTS SAY AI WORKS BEST WHEN THE LOGIC IS MANAGED AT THE BUSINESS LEVEL, ALTERYX RESEARCH FINDS
Alteryx, Inc., an AI-ready data and analytics company, today released its “2026 State of Data Analysts in the Age of AI” report, revealing that while AI is becoming central to business decision-making, human oversight remains critical to ensuring AI-generated outcomes are trusted and actionable. The research found that analysts spend nearly four hours per week validating and correcting AI-generated outputs, while poor data quality and governance continue to undermine AI and analytics initiatives. The findings also show that AI works best when the people closest to the business stay involved, with 65% of analysts saying AI and agent-based systems are most productive when the logic is managed at the business level. As organizations accelerate toward more agentic AI systems, the need for trusted data, governed logic and workflows, and human oversight continues to grow.
Key Findings at a Glance:
- 96% of data analysts are actively using AI tools in their roles
- 47% of failed AI and analytics projects are attributed to poor data quality or governance
- 65% of analysts say AI and agent-based systems are most productive when the logic is managed at the business level
- Data analysts spend an average of 5.7 hours per week preparing and cleaning data, and an additional 3.7 hours per week checking and correcting AI outputs
- Only 3% prefer fully autonomous AI without routine human involvement, while 46% favor a human-in-the-loop approach
The findings point to a broader shift in how organizations are operationalizing AI. As businesses move from experimentation to deploying AI in core workflows and decision-making, trust increasingly depends on more than model performance alone. Analysts and operations teams play a critical role because they maintain business logic, governance standards, and operational context that help AI systems produce reliable and actionable outcomes.
Human Oversight Still Remains Central in the Age of Agentic AI
As AI becomes a bigger part of an analyst’s day-to-day work, the impact goes beyond simple productivity gains. Businesses are quickly adopting more advanced AI capabilities, like agentic AI, but, on the contrary, analysts are now spending more time reviewing, validating, and guiding AI-generated work. Over half (59%) expect to use AI agents to generate insights within the next year, and many are already using them to draft communications (59%) and manage workflows (54%).
Even as AI takes on a larger role in data-to-insight workflows, analysts remain closely involved because they are ultimately accountable for the quality, accuracy, and reliability of the outcomes. Nearly half (46%) prefer a human-in-the-loop approach where AI systems require human approval before taking action, while only 3% are comfortable with fully autonomous AI. The findings suggest that as AI becomes more embedded in business processes, trust, oversight, and human judgment remain essential to ensuring outputs are accurate, explainable, and aligned with business needs.
“AI is already influencing how businesses make decisions every day, but our research highlights a reality many organizations are now confronting: trust matters just as much as speed,” said Andy MacMillan, CEO at Alteryx. “The people closest to the business play a critical role because they understand the logic, rules, and operational context behind decisions, whether that’s pricing models, compliance requirements, or operational thresholds, and that business logic is constantly evolving. AI can accelerate work, but organizations still need governed workflows and human oversight to ensure outcomes are visible, understandable, repeatable, and auditable across the organization.”
Data Challenges Continue to Limit AI Success
Behind every successful AI initiative is a strong data foundation, and many organizations are still struggling to get there. Even as AI adoption grows, ongoing issues with data quality, access, and governance continue to slow progress and limit AI effectiveness. Analysts say either poor data quality or governance is responsible for nearly half (47%) of failed AI and analytics projects, making it the biggest barrier to AI success.
Most (79%) analysts believe their data is ready for AI at scale, yet the day-to-day reality looks much different. Analysts still spend an average of nearly 6 hours each week preparing and cleaning data, plus nearly another 4 hours reviewing and correcting AI-generated outputs, checking for issues such as incorrect calculations, inconsistent metrics, or responses that don’t align with company policies and definitions. Governance concerns are also rising, with access control and data exposure (42%) ranking as the top issue, followed closely by regulatory compliance (41%). These findings show that as companies push AI deeper into business operations, the people closest to the business increasingly need to provide the context AI relies on, including not just clean data, but also the business logic, workflows, policies, and governance that shape how decisions are made and acted on.
AI Becomes Core to Business Decision-Making
AI is quickly becoming part of everyday business decision-making. Nearly all analysts surveyed (96%) say they use AI tools in their work every day, and organizations are already seeing the impact. Among IT leaders, 85% report noticeable gains in employee productivity, while 79% say AI is helping teams make decisions faster.
As AI adoption grows, AI-generated insights are carrying more weight across the business. Half (50%) of analysts and 62% of IT leaders say that most or almost all business-critical decisions are now influenced by AI insights.
But generating insights faster doesn’t always make decisions easier. The biggest challenge organizations face is helping business leaders understand and trust AI-generated outputs, with 43% saying interpreting and explaining AI insights remains a key barrier. At the same time, companies continue embedding AI into core technologies like cloud data warehouses (40%) and business intelligence tools (39%), making AI an increasingly central part of how businesses operate.
The Evolving Role of the Data Analyst
Analysts increasingly see AI as a collaborator that changes how work gets done, not a replacement for human expertise. In fact, 82% say automation is making them more effective by helping them work faster and focus on higher-value tasks.
As AI becomes more embedded in everyday operations, the role of the analyst is evolving from producing insights to guiding how AI systems operate. Over the next five years, 40% believe changing skill requirements will have the biggest impact on their responsibilities, while 36% point to the growing importance of real-time analytics. The findings suggest that analysts and operational teams will play an increasingly important role in defining, validating, and evolving the business logic AI systems rely on to deliver trusted, repeatable outcomes. This includes the rules, calculations, and operational processes that determine how the business actually runs, whether it’s updating tax rules in different countries, changing sales commission structures, adjusting supply chain thresholds, or applying compliance and pricing policies as conditions evolve.
Tech News
Holcim And National Development Consortium Sign Strategic MoU to Advance Integrated, Sustainable Development Across the UAE
Holcim UAE and the National Development Consortium (NDC) have signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to drive an integrated approach to large-scale infrastructure across the Emirates. The partnership unites capabilities across the project value chain to deliver more resilient, sustainable, and future-ready developments.
The collaboration reflects a shared commitment to move beyond fragmented project models, where engineering, technology, sustainability, and operations often function in isolation, toward a unified execution framework aligned from day one.
Through the MoU, Holcim UAE and NDC will connect key stakeholders across the development ecosystem, including developers, government authorities, technical specialists, industrial operators, and strategic investors. The partnership will focus on high-impact projects where infrastructure, technology, and long-term operational value intersect.
Anna Griffin said: ““The UAE has built a world-class ecosystem across development, engineering, technology, and infrastructure. The opportunity now is to connect these capabilities more effectively. Our partnership with NDC integrates the right expertise, solutions, and stakeholders from project inception to deliver superior outcomes—an essential step toward building the resilient, sustainable cities of tomorrow.”
The partnership will target several strategic growth areas identified by NDC, including sustainable infrastructure, smart industrial hubs, food security and agriculture, green logistics and warehousing, workforce accommodation, and circular economy assets.
Within this broader ecosystem, Holcim will contribute its expertise in sustainable construction and circularity, anchored by its core philosophy of “Building Cities from Cities.” Through urban mining, Holcim recovers and upcycles construction and demolition waste directly back into new high-performance building materials. This is supported by low-carbon building solutions such as ECOPlanet cement and ECOPact concrete, alongside circular technology platforms including ECOCycle® and GeoCycle. Together, these capabilities enable projects to reduce carbon emissions, improve resource efficiency, and embed true circularity across the built environment.
By embedding sustainability early in the master-planning phase, Holcim UAE and NDC will ensure environmental performance, construction waste processing, and water efficiency are embedded into project design rather than added retrospectively.
For NDC, the partnership supports its vision of developing infrastructure-led, sustainability-driven and execution-focused projects, with a focus on strategic relevance, clear execution logic, commercial and operational viability, measurable sustainability value and potential for scalability.
The alliance directly aligns with the UAE’s broader economic objectives, supporting the Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative and Operation 300bn by demonstrating how value-chain coordination unlocks a more sustainable next generation of national infrastructure.
Through value-chain coordination, the partnership aims to accelerate the delivery of smarter, greener, and more resilient development for the UAE.
Tech News
Datadobi Adds Data Access Governance to StorageMAP, Enabling Enterprises to Answer the Critical Question: “Who Has Access to What?”
Datadobi, a leader in the Data Storage Management Services space, today announced the general availability of Data Access Governance (DAG) within StorageMAP. The new capability gives organizations visibility into who has access to their unstructured data and whether that access aligns with corporate policy. It extends Datadobi’s ability to help enterprises discover, align, and operationalize data across fragmented environments as their intelligence and orchestration layer.
As AI initiatives, cyber threats, and rising data complexity expose the limits of traditional approaches, DAG addresses a critical gap: organizations cannot govern, protect, or extract value from data they cannot see or control. As AI initiatives, cyber threats, and rising data complexity expose the limits of traditional approaches, DAG addresses a critical gap: organizations cannot govern, protect, or extract value from data they cannot see or control.
StorageMAP’s DAG capability gives administrators comprehensive visibility into access permissions across fragmented unstructured data environments. By surfacing who has access to what data, and whether that access aligns with business and security policy. Organizations can detect misaligned permissions, reduce cyber exposure, and enforce governance at scale. This visibility is the essential first stage of the broader DSMS discipline — visibility, understanding, decision, execution — that determines whether organizations can act on their data with confidence.
The introduction of DAG extends StorageMAP’s existing capabilities across data discovery, classification, risk assessment, lifecycle management and AI Data Readiness. Together, these capabilities help organizations to discover what data they have, align it with business value and risk requirements, and operationalize policy-driven action across their environments. The result is unstructured data that supports AI initiatives, strengthens cyber resilience, reduces cost, and drives long-term business value rather than holding it back.
DAG, which was trialed by a number of beta customers, supports a range of enterprise use cases, from protecting sensitive data and reducing breach impact, to maintaining records compliance and managing risk through mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. Early access customers identified a gap in their understanding of which critical datasets were exposed and who could access them, often relying on manual investigation to respond to audits and security incidents.
With Datadobi’s DAG capabilities, these organizations quickly identify overexposed data and validate access controls to proactively strengthen their security posture. For organizations investing in AI, it provides the governance foundation that trusted, well-governed data requires. And for those subject to data protection regulations (such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS), it delivers the visibility needed to demonstrate that access controls are in place, operating as intended, and aligned with business policy.

“Unstructured data is at the center of every major enterprise challenge right now including AI readiness, cyber resilience, cost management, and regulatory compliance,” said Michael Jack, Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer for Datadobi. “But organizations cannot address any of those challenges with data they cannot see or control. Data Access Governance gives teams the visibility to understand who has access to what, identify where risk exists, and take action to bring their unstructured data under control. It is a foundational step in turning unstructured data from a source of risk and complexity into a driver of business value.”
Tech News
Cloudera and Muroon Announce Strategic MoU

In a strategic move to advance enterprise digital enablement and support the technological ambitions of Saudi Vision 2030, Cloudera, the only true hybrid platform for data, analytics, and AI, has agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MuroonI the technology and digital enablement subsidiary of Tawuniya.
The proposed collaboration aims to evaluate opportunities to help organizations across the region modernize their technology capabilities, accelerate digital transformation, and unlock long-term business value. By leveraging Cloudera’s products and services, the engagement will explore how Cloudera’s hybrid data platforms and AI-driven analytics can help to boost Muroon’s expanding IT and digital enablement objectives.
Under the proposed partnership, Muroon and Cloudera will aim to collaborate on delivering secure data exchange and modern cloud architecture. Integrating Cloudera Anywhere Cloud™ principles, the proposed collaboration will explore ways to deliver a consistent cloud experience, enabling organizations to deploy AI and analytics workloads across private data centers and cloud environments with unified governance and security.
The proposed alliance creates complementary roles for both organizations. Muroon will leverage its delivery capabilities, consulting expertise, implementation services, across the Tawuniya ecosystem and the wider region. Cloudera will look to provide technology leadership, platform expertise, solution architecture, and technical enablement.
Ahmad Shakora, General Vice President of META, Cloudera, said:
“Our proposed collaboration with Muroon represents an important milestone in empowering regional organizations with modern hybrid data and AI architectures. Through Cloudera’s ability to bring AI and analytics to data anywhere it resides, combined with Muroon’s deep digital enablement and implementation capabilities, we aim to accelerate innovation, ensure secure data management, and actively contribute to the digital economy goals of Saudi Vision 2030.”
Faisal Bakhsh, Vice President of Business Development and Services Delivery at Muroon, added:
“As the technology arm of Tawuniya Group, Muroon is dedicated to delivering cutting-edge digital solutions that drive operational efficiency and business growth. Exploring this partnership with Cloudera allows us to harness world-class hybrid data and AI platforms to expand our service capabilities, facilitate secure data exchange, and deliver transformative value to our ecosystem and clients across Saudi Arabia.”
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