While GenAI will be prominent at the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit, at least half the agenda is dedicated to traditional topics covering good data management and how to get the most out of your analytics investments.
At the 2024 Gartner Data & Analytics Summit (coming soon on March 10-13, 2024, in Orlando), almost half of the sessions presented by Gartner analysts and others are centered around one of the hottest topics in the business world, GenAI (Generative Artificial Intelligence). Notice that I referred to the “business world” and not just the “data world.” Last year’s agenda had only a handful of sessions on GenAI, despite the fact that “GenAI” was on everyone’s lips, mostly in the form of When and How questions. Only one year later, after a sprint up the Gartner Hype Cycle, GenAI is now the central focus of the 2024 Gartner D&A Summit.
The Importance of GenAI
What if your role doesn’t require you to work on GenAI? Wait a second–it will, even if you’re just called upon to evaluate whether it’s a good fit for your organization.
The impact of GenAI and the quest to leverage it reaches beyond the domain of the data and AI experts, but it still falls to these to implement this ground-breaking technology. Recognizing that the traditional audience of this Gartner event stands at the intersection of business and technology and that it will be called upon to steer GenAI projects through this turbulent passage, Gartner provides the information that all levels and roles need today.
The agenda shows a very broad perspective with sessions on the organizational, the financial, the technical, and the risk mitigation that enterprise GenAI requires. But it also goes deep, deep into the data tools, architectures, and practices that underpin successful GenAI projects. Many of these are familiar to us from the playbook on data management in general and analytics specifically. Take data integration and data quality, for example. Or managing data teams as you ensure their alignment with business goals, especially as the demands on these teams grow with the hunger for information. Data governance is another practice that this conference dives into. While many organizations still struggle to put data governance practices on a firm footing, GenAI raises the stakes and might even force these to catapult forward to avoid civil and criminal penalties.
Summit Sessions You Should Not Miss
Let’s take a look at some highlights from the sessions that address the business, organizational, and technical foundations of enterprise GenAI.
Most everyone agrees that GenAI will change the nature of, well, everything. But what are we supposed to do with it? Gartner analysts will share their insights and experience-based guidance in sessions like:
- “The CDAO Playbook for Generative AI” by Rita Sallam, Distinguished VP Analyst
- “Measuring and Quantifying Cost, Risk & Value of AI Initiatives” by Frances Karamouzis, Distinguished VP Analyst
- “Ask The Expert: Enterprise Implications of Generative AI” with Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst.
There are sessions that cover more detailed horizontal and vertical GenAI use cases explaining how to transform existing data and applications by integrating elements of AI, such as:
- “Recipes for Using Enterprise Data with LLMs” by Svetlana Sicular, VP Analyst
- “Decision Intelligence Platforms — No Excuses for Bad Decisions Anymore” by Erick Brethenoux, Distinguished VP Analyst
- “Workshop: Humanize the AI Elements of Your Product With Empathy and Candor” run by Whit Andrews, Distinguished VP Analyst, and Maryam Hassanlou, Sr Principal Analyst, where attendees create engaging personas for GenAI user interfaces.
See also: How to Make Generative AI Work for Industry
Technology strategists and architects have a range of sessions to choose from. These two sessions are examples of how the agenda addresses the full AI stack and the processes that hold it together, from the lowest-level hardware considerations to taking a broad approach to monitoring performance and security. They include:
- “Ask the Expert: Do I Need AI Chips, GPUs and Other Advanced Computing Infrastructures for AI?” with Chirag Dekate, VP Analyst
- “Technical Insights: Introduce AI Observability to Supervise Generative AI” with Carlton Sapp, Managing Vice President.
There are quite a few sessions on governance and “well-behaved” or reliable GenAI, some of which offer surprising perspectives on those areas. As the session titles indicate, the analysts go beyond insights into the risks and offer solutions to address the potential harm GenAI can cause. Notable sessions include:
- “Embracing Bias in the Era of Generative AI” by Jim Hare, Distinguished VP Analyst, describes how and why bias “can be a good thing.
- “Overcoming GenAI Risk Fallacies” by Lydia Clougherty Jones, Sr Director Analyst
- “Avoiding the Data ‘Third Rail’ in GenAI Projects” by Aaron Rosenbaum, Sr Director Analyst.
Enterprises count on Gartner analysts to watch technologies emerge and discern where trends are headed. Three future-oriented sessions stand out in this regard. They are:
- “Emerging Practices for Decision Intelligence: The Next Leap for Data, Analytics and AI” by Erick Brethenoux, Distinguished VP Analyst, where he will describe the concept of “composite AI” and how to apply it to critical business applications.
- “Maverick: Gartner’s Most Provocative D&A Predictions” with Frank Buytendijk, Distinguished VP Analyst
- “The Quantum Economy: Seizing Tomorrow’s Opportunity — Today!” with Chirag Dekate, VP Analyst. In this session, Dekate will elaborate on how quantum technology “could be the next source of economic prosperity and transformation” and prepare you for it.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Lest we leave you with the wrong impression that the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit has pivoted completely to GenAI and other “shiny objects,” at least half the agenda is dedicated to establishing foundations for good data management and ensuring organizations get the most out of their analytics investments, including taking the resulting information to corner offices and boardrooms as well as using it to support or automate essential business functions.
The 2024 Gartner Data & Analytics Summit is a golden opportunity to learn from Gartner’s industry analysts who monitor and interpret market and technology trends, as well as from your peers and their successful use cases. To take up this opportunity, you can register at https://www.gartner.com/en/conferences/na/data-analytics-us/register.
RTInsights’ founder Les Yeamans and I will be on the exhibit floor and interviewing leaders in the real-time analytics space, real-time being a vital aspect of GenAI implementations. So do say hello and share your impressions of the event with us.
See also: Data & Analytics Leadership
