PodChats for FutureCIO: Breaking the Data Wall in 2026
FutureCIO, Friday, May 29th, 2026
ASEAN CIOs face a data wall limiting AI ROI despite rising budgets, requiring unified data fabric and real-time activation.
ASEAN CIOs are hitting a 'data wall' in 2026 despite rising AI budgets, with 60% of organizations seeing less than 5% EBIT impact from AI initiatives.
The shift toward agentic AI has intensified pressure on data integration, governance, and security. David Irecki from Boomi identifies three critical obstacles: data quality, integration debt, and governance gaps.
Breaking through requires a reliable data foundation, integration-centric architecture with APIs as control planes, and embedded governance to enable real-time data activation. Organizations with stronger data foundations report seven times higher revenue and efficiency gains, making data activation the core strategy for converting AI spending into measurable business outcomes.