Data Transforming Business

Enterprise AI budgets are climbing, but the data foundations beneath them remain uneven. In this episode of Don’t Panic, It’s Just Data, Kevin Petrie, VP of Research at BARC, and Nathan Turajski, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Informatica, examine the findings of the CDO Insights 2026 report, which argues that executive confidence in AI may be outpacing organisational readiness. The study centres on what it describes as a growing “trust paradox” as Chief Data Officers are accelerating AI initiatives even as data quality, governance maturity, and AI literacy struggle to keep up. The Trust ParadoxThe report exposes a striking disconnect. Turajski points out that while around 65 per cent of data leaders believe employees trust the data powering AI, 75 per cent say upskilling in data and AI literacy is essential. In other words, confidence is high, but readiness is lagging.This is the trust paradox where employees increasingly rely on AI outputs, while data leaders r