Data Faces Podcast

Doug Laney coined the three V's of big data in 2001. On this episode of the Data Faces podcast, he names the next three for the agentic AI era: volition, visibility, and viscosity. David Sweenor and Doug Laney get into the seven levels of agentic autonomy, from a basic chatbot to a business that runs itself, why labor savings are the least imaginative way to value an AI agent, who really owns...

Everyone is racing to do something with agentic AI. Almost nobody is asking whether they should. Andreas Welsch spent close to two decades building enterprise AI at SAP, and he is now one of the most direct voices on what agentic AI demands from business leaders. In this episode of the Data Faces Podcast, David Sweenor and Andreas Welsch talk about the contagion driving AI layoffs, the revenue que...

"Without context, your agents are dumb." That's how Josh Howard, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Executive Audiences at Databricks, closed Episode 40 of the Data Faces Podcast. Frontier models are some of the most advanced technology of our lifetime. They are also dumb in the way that matters for your business, because they were trained on the public internet and have never...

The difference between an AI that "hallucinates" and one that acts intelligently lies in context. In Episode 39 of the Data Faces Podcast, Steve Wooledge (CMO at Collate) joins David Sweenor to discuss why metadata, once a technical "card catalog," is now the foundational layer for the agentic era. Steve traces his journey from chemical engineering to building categories at Alt...

LinkedIn has a "rewrite with AI" button. Meanwhile, Kate Strachnyi is building an entire media company on authentic human voices. Is she right? In Episode 38 of the Data Faces Podcast, Kate Strachnyi (Founder, DATAcated) shares how she pivoted from finance to data visualization, built a 40+ creator influencer agency, and why she's betting on real humans over AI-generated content. Key...

For 25 years, data quality was everyone'sproblem and nobody's priority. Brendan Grady, EVP and GM of Analytics & AIat Qlik, explains why the stakes just changed. In this episode recorded on location at QlikConnect 2026, David Sweenor and Brendan discuss consequence management, whereenterprise agentic adoption really stands ("prior to stage zero"),Qlik's Trust Score for AI...

On the Data Faces Podcast, I usually interview someone with a whole face. For this bonus segment, I made an exception. Scott Taylor's Data Puppets character "A-Eye" joins the show fresh from the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit. The puppet had thoughts about agentic AI, data governance, and vendors who couldn't spell AI two years ago. Key moments:1- A-Eye reports from the Gart...

Data leaders have been pitching "data quality" to executives for decades, and the pitch keeps falling flat. Scott Taylor, the Data Whisperer, explains why — and what to do instead. In Episode 34 of the Data Faces Podcast, Scott Taylor (MetaMeta Consulting) shares his three-word data philosophy — truth before meaning — and the 3V framework (Vocabulary, Voice, Vision) that helps data leade...

Stewart Bond coined the term "data intelligence" in 2016. Now it's a market category. Here's how it happened — and why it matters more than ever for AI. Stewart Bond, Research VP at IDC, joins David Sweenor on the Data Faces Podcast to trace the origins of "data intelligence" from a single research note to a full-blown market category adopted by Collibra, Alation, Infor...

"All the computer programs that have ever needed to be written have already been written." That's what Michael Meyer's guidance counselor told him in the late 1980s. 35 years later, he's still proving that advice wrong. In this episode of the Data Faces Podcast, host David Sweenor sits down with Michael Meyer, Solutions Engineer at Snowflake, to talk about the skill that carr...

📢 Most AI initiatives stall not because of weak models, but because of weak execution. In this episode of the Data Faces Podcast, David Sweenor sits down with Asa Whillock, CEO of Euphonic AI, to unpack what it really takes to operationalize AI inside the enterprise. With experience spanning Adobe, Alteryx, and now a growth-focused AI startup, Asa explains why production AI depends less on model...

📢 AI governance is moving faster than most companies can control—and that gap is where risk shows up. In this episode of the Data Faces Podcast, Gene Arnold, Partner Sales Engineer at Atlan, breaks down what AI governance actually looks like in real organizations—not policy decks or theory, but decisions, tradeoffs, and failures teams face every day. David Sweenor and Gene explore how AI governan...

📢 Most companies invest heavily in data and AI—yet few see real business impact. Why? In this episode of Data Faces , David Sweenor sits down with Randy Bean to unpack four decades of lessons from the front lines of data, analytics, and AI leadership. Randy shares insights from his long-running Fortune 1000 benchmark surveys, explains why culture—not technology—remains the biggest blocker, and ou...

📢 AI is everywhere—but what’s real, what’s hype, and where is the business value actually coming from? In this episode of the Data Faces Podcast, David Sweenor sits down with Tom Davenport, Distinguished Professor at Babson College and one of the most trusted voices in analytics and AI. They unpack where AI is delivering durable value today, why generative AI may be overvalued, and what leaders s...

📢 2025 was the year AI met the real world. No demos. No hype. Just results—and hard lessons. In this special Data Faces year-in-review episode, we synthesize insights from 27 conversations with leaders across data, analytics, and AI to surface what actually mattered in enterprise adoption. Rather than new models or bigger tools, the story of 2025 centered on strategy, operational maturity, agent...

📢 Can open source, AI, and enterprise analytics really coexist? Absolutely—and Bruno Trimouille from Posit is here to explain how.   How are open source tools reshaping enterprise data science? What role does AI play in bridging business and technical teams? In this episode, Posit CMO Bruno Trimouille breaks down how his team supports millions of users—while staying true to an open source mission...

📢 Most AI failures don’t come from the model—they come from the data feeding it. In this episode of the Data Faces Podcast , Tina Chace, VP of Product Management at Solidatus, explains why incomplete lineage, missing context, and silent upstream changes quietly undermine AI systems long before anyone notices. Tina shares lessons from deploying AI and machine learning in major banks, breaking down...

📢 What happens when culture and technology collide—do they compete, or do they enhance one another? In this episode of Data Faces , Gina von Esmarch, Founder and CEO of Adesso Associates, shares how cultural heritage, storytelling, and emerging technologies work together to shape stronger communities and brands. 🔍 Key Takeaways: 1- How AI and cultural identity can evolve together, not apart.2- W...

📢 What happens when AI becomes your sales coach? In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping how sales teams learn, ramp, and perform. Join David Sweenor, Founder of TinyTechGuides, as he talks with Matt Magne, Senior Enablement Manager of Revenue Enablement at LaunchDarkly, about the new frontier of AI-driven sales enablement — from AI role plays to digital coaching and...

📢 What’s the real end game of AI? Is it about smarter machines—or smarter organizations? In this episode of Data Faces, Eric Kavanagh, AI analyst and syndicated radio host of DM Radio, joins David Sweenor, founder of TinyTechGuides, to explore what success in AI truly means for business, technology, and society. Eric has spent decades helping enterprises navigate the data-driven world. He argues...

📢 AI agents are moving fast from hype to enterprise reality. But how do leaders ensure they deliver real ROI—without creating risk and chaos? In this episode of Data Faces , David Sweenor sits down with Catalina Herrera, Field Chief Data Officer at Dataiku, to explore how organizations can adopt AI agents responsibly. Catalina shares a practical framework for balancing speed, governance, and reli...

📢 What if your marketing campaigns could adapt themselves in real time—without you lifting a finger? In this episode of Data Faces , David Sweenor talks with Rajeev Kozhikkattuthodi, Co-founder & CEO at Poexis, about how Agentic AI is reshaping growth marketing across events, ABM, and inbound. Rajeev shares practical lessons from the front lines: where Agentic AI actually delivers ROI, how to...

📢 AI is more than GenAI—and sustainable success depends on governance, teamwork, and evolution, not disruption. In this episode of Data Faces , David Sweenor sits down with Thomas Been, CMO at Domino Data Lab , to unpack how enterprises can move beyond hype and build real, lasting value with AI. From governance frameworks to the human factor, Thomas shares practical insights that every technology...

📢 What happens when AI agents take on real tasks in marketing, sales, and operations? In this episode, Chelsea Wise of Relevance AI shares practical insights on how AI agents are transforming the future of work. Chelsea draws on her startup experience, academic background in consumer behavior, and role at Relevance AI to explain what leaders often underestimate about AI agents—and how to prepare...

📢 Are you losing customers because your product messaging is too complex? In this episode of Data Faces , I sit down with Emma Stratton, founder of Punchy and expert in B2B SaaS storytelling, to talk about how to cut through the jargon, keep your message simple, and connect with your audience. Emma shares her proven framework for making marketing more “punchy,” and why simplicity is the secret we...