This month on The Data T, we sit down with Erik Duffield, CEO and co-founder of Hakkoda, now an IBM Company, to unpack the latest hot topic in our industry: AI-ready data. Everyone’s talking about it, but what does it really take to build an AI-ready data team or data practice?AI-readiness isn’t about the latest tool, it’s about a mindset shift. Duffield shares why data programs must now be designed for machines as primary consumers, how data governance has evolved from a blocker to an enabler, and why the speed of iteration, not a single big launch, is the real measure of success. Duffield touches on agentic AI in production, the future of data careers, and what 2026 may hold for both the AI market and enterprise adoption.Co-hosted by Coalesce cofounders Armon Petrossian and Satish JayanthiKey topics:What does an AI-ready data program look like?Gaps between hype and reality in AI initiativesWhat keeps data leaders up at night?Data security concernsData team composition and reskilling for AI successLabor force shifts and career progression challengesHow do you define and measure trusted, AI-ready data?Top data trends and predictions for 2006Resources: About Hakkoda, an IBM Company: https://hakkoda.io/ About Coalesce: https://coalesce.io/ Coalesce is the only data transformation and governance platform designed for the AI era. Built on a metadata-driven framework, Coalesce gives data teams the speed to build and deploy transformations 10× faster—while enforcing the standards, structure, and governance needed to scale sustainably. With Coalesce Catalog, transformation and metadata management come together in a single solution, enabling discovery, trust, and collaboration across the business. Whether accelerating AI-assisted migrations from legacy tools or future-proofing enterprise data architectures, Coalesce provides the guardrails and efficiency to keep data teams AI-ready.
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How AI Made Data Governance Sexy with Pierre Jr Cliche
Data governance is far from anyone’s favorite topic, but at Infostrux it’s the superpower behind launching successful AI initiatives. In this episode of the Data T podcast, CEO Pierre Jr Cliche joins Coalesce co-founders Armon Petrossian and Satish Jayanthi to share how Infostrux rides today’s GenAI wave to get buy-in for data governance projects most execs would otherwise overlook: data cataloging, data lineage, and building data transformation frameworks that turn messy data into governed, production-ready assets.Learn how to build a value narrative that makes data governance feel like a growth and innovation enabler rather than a cost center, why a catalog and clear data roles are essential for AI accuracy, and how to get leadership genuinely excited about investing in “unsexy” data work.Key TopicsThe shift in data governance perceptionThe role of AI in data governanceWhy the majority of Gen AI projects failHow to get stakeholders’ buy-in for data governance initiativesTop challenges for data governance and the tools to solve themResources:About Coalesce: https://coalesce.io/about/Coalesce podcast archive (The Data T): https://coalesce.io/podcast/
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Mid-Year Reality Check: Data Predictions With Mike Palmer
With 2025 more than halfway over, it’s time to test this year’s bold data forecasts—and look ahead to what’s still coming. On this episode of The Data T, Sigma CEO Mike Palmer joins Coalesce co-founders Armon Petrossian and Satish Jayanthi to unpack where data and analytics are really heading in 2025. From rewriting Sigma’s platform on day 30 to calling time on traditional BI “insights,” Palmer explains why the next wave will be AI-powered, end-user apps built on a radically slimmer tool stack—and why data leaders should double the scope of their impact and bet bigger than ever.Key TopicsPalmer’s path from Teach For America to Sigma CEOConsolidation in the data industry: from 50–100 analytics tools to ~20Why “insights” and text-to-SQL won’t democratize dataAI’s role in merging BI, apps, and workflow automationAdvice for data professionalsResources:About Coalesce: https://coalesce.io/about/Coalesce podcast archive (The Data T): https://coalesce.io/podcast/
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The Architect of Scale: Ion Stoica on Open Source, AI, and the Future of Data
Ion Stoica is a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Databricks, and a key architect of the Apache Spark project. Most recently, he’s the Co-Founder of Anyscale, which leverages the open source Ray framework developed in-lab to enable scalable AI workloads, much like Spark revolutionized large-scale data processing.In this episode of The Data T, we chat with Stoica about his illustrious career, how his obsession with solving hard technical problems led him from networking research to peer-to-peer video, Apache Spark, and ultimately Databricks. He recounts turning Spark’s open-source momentum into a successful enterprise business, crediting speed of execution and targeted hiring for the company’s rise and urging founders to move fast and recruit experienced operators early. Stoica warns that tomorrow’s workloads will demand vertically integrated, multi-accelerator systems. Optimistic yet realistic about AI, he sees reliability and “human-in-the-loop” workflows as today’s gating factors and advises data professionals to embrace continuous learning as the industry accelerates.Hosted by Armon Petrossian and Satish Jayanthi, co-founders of Coalesce.Key topics:The origins of Apache Spark and DatabricksCommercializing open source projectsScaling AI infrastructure complexityAdvice for data practitionersResources:About Coalesce: https://coalesce.io/about/Coalesce podcast archive (The Data T): https://coalesce.io/podcast/
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Model as You Go: A New Take on BI
In this episode of The Data T podcast, Armon Petrossian and Satish Jayanthi sit down with Colin Zima, co-founder and CEO of Omni, to talk about what it takes to reinvent business intelligence. Colin shares his journey from Looker’s early days to building Omni, the lessons learned along the way, and his philosophy of ruthless pragmatism when it comes to data modeling, product development, and AI. The conversation dives deep into the evolving BI landscape, the importance of semantics in AI, and how building trust—whether with customers or stakeholders—can be the real engine of innovation. If you're into the future of data platforms, building in public, or just want to hear what happens when two modern data stack founders compare notes, this one's for you. Main topics: Early startup challenges and reflectionsThe evolving BI landscape The evolution of the Modern Data Stack Perspectives on data modeling The role of semantic layers in AI Hot takes in data analytics Collaboration as a key to success Building trust in data teams Resources: About Omni: https://omni.co/ About Coalesce: https://coalesce.io/about/ Coalesce podcast archive (The Data T): https://coalesce.io/podcast/
Previously known as Coffee with Coalesce, The Data T is a monthly podcast hosted by Armon Petrossian and Satish Jayanthi, co-founders of Coalesce, the data transformation company. Each month, we invite industry experts, entrepreneurs, and executives to spill the tea on the data industry's hottest topics: from data modeling and data ops to AI and LLMs, data engineering trends and predictions, datapreneurship, and more.
France