Actian, the data and AI division of HCLSoftware, has launched the Actian Data Steward Agent, a new AI-powered capability embedded within the Actian Data Intelligence Platform. The solution is designed to automate metadata documentation, enrichment and governance while helping enterprises build AI-ready data foundations faster and with reduced manual effort.
The launch comes as organizations continue expanding enterprise AI deployments and face increasing pressure to maintain consistent governance, semantic alignment and trusted business context across growing data environments.
Organizations are generating more data than ever, yet many still rely on manual metadata management processes that slow down governance initiatives and limit the business value of enterprise data.
According to Gartner, many data and analytics leaders continue to underutilize metadata practices, while data stewards often dedicate only a small portion of their time to governance and cataloging responsibilities.
As enterprises deploy larger networks of AI agents and connected workflows, metadata consistency has become critical to ensuring AI systems operate from a shared understanding of enterprise data.
The Actian Data Steward Agent addresses this challenge by continuously updating metadata and governance context directly within enterprise catalog workflows as data environments evolve.
The Data Steward Agent is built on the Actian Data Intelligence Platform’s federated knowledge graph, semantic layer, data products and data contracts. The agent supports both internal platform workflows and external AI agents connected through Model Context Protocol (MCP) and agent-to-agent (A2A) integrations.
Unlike traditional AI copilots that focus on isolated tasks, the Data Steward Agent is designed to automate broader data stewardship workflows across enterprise data catalogs.
Key capabilities include:
The agent automatically writes and updates documentation for data assets as enterprise data pipelines evolve, helping organizations maintain accurate metadata records.
The platform identifies orphaned data assets, assigns ownership recommendations and flags gaps in documentation and governance coverage.
The agent recommends classifications for personally identifiable information (PII), sensitivity levels and business domains while surfacing policy alignment issues before data reaches downstream users and AI systems.
The solution also creates and maintains business glossary definitions and enterprise-wide terminology to improve semantic consistency across AI workflows.
Actian stated that the Data Steward Agent uses natural language processing to ground recommendations in data lineage, usage patterns and existing catalog context for improved accuracy.
The outputs are aligned with existing data products and contracts to support governance consistency while keeping human oversight in place. Data stewards review and approve recommendations, allowing teams to focus on validation and governance rather than manual metadata creation.
"As enterprises deploy interconnected AI agents across workflows, maintaining semantic consistency manually becomes operationally impossible," said Guillaume Bodet, chief product officer of Actian. "The Data Steward Agent continuously aligns metadata, business definitions, lineage, and governance context so AI systems can operate from a shared understanding of enterprise data."
The Data Steward Agent is now available as part of the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, which includes conversational analytics, lineage tracking, semantic understanding and enterprise data quality capabilities.
About Actian
Actian empowers enterprises to confidently manage and govern data at scale. Actian data management and data intelligence solutions help streamline complex data environments and accelerate the delivery of AI-ready data. Designed to be flexible, Actian solutions integrate seamlessly and perform reliably across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
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