CData Software has launched Connect AI, a new managed platform designed to solve the challenges of AI access to enterprise data. The platform, introduced at the company's Foundations conference, gives AI assistants, agents, and applications live, governed access to over 300 business data sources. Unlike traditional data integration, Connect AI preserves data semantics and relationships, ensuring AI understands the context and meaning of the data, not just where it is located.
CData has launched Connect AI, a managed Model Context Protocol (MCP) platform.
It provides AI applications with live, governed access to over 300 enterprise data sources.
Connect AI preserves data context and semantics, improving AI's understanding of business data.
The platform addresses data access and governance challenges that cause many AI pilots to fail.
It inherits existing security and authentication protocols from source systems for comprehensive governance.
The solution can be deployed in the cloud or embedded in minutes with point-and-click configuration.
According to recent MIT research, despite billions in investment, 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail due to data access and governance issues. CData’s Connect AI directly addresses these problems. First, it enables data-in-place access, allowing AI agents to work with data where it lives while preserving rich contextual relationships. This gives AI the "semantic understanding" needed for intelligent decision-making. Second, Connect AI inherits existing security and authentication protocols from the source system, ensuring that data access is always aligned with an organization’s security controls and logged under the user's identity. This layered security provides the governance and trust required for enterprises to move from AI experimentation to full-scale production.
"Enterprises that want to safely and effectively put their business data to work with AI need real-time access combined with semantic understanding. AI needs to comprehend what data means, not just where it lives," said Manish Patel, Chief Product Officer of CData. "With Connect AI, companies can for the first time give AI applications governed, live access to data across hundreds of systems with the contextual intelligence that transforms AI from a productivity experiment into a trusted enterprise tool."
Connect AI is already demonstrating its value for enterprises and software providers. For businesses, it allows teams to get contextually-aware answers from business data in seconds, a task that previously could take days or weeks. For example, sales teams can use AI to get pipeline insights, marketing can analyze campaigns, and finance can get real-time budget updates, all by using simple conversational queries. ISVs can also embed the white-label offering directly into their products, providing their end-users with powerful self-service integration. Industry analysts, such as Stephen Catanzano of Enterprise Strategy Group, see tools like Connect AI as a critical response to the widespread market challenges of scaling AI initiatives due to siloed and poorly governed data.
"CData's Connect AI with Acumatica completely changed how we access our ERP data," said Bhavik Paryani, Growth and Strategy Leader at Paryani Construction. "I was able to pull live financial data and create an interactive dashboard right in the middle of a project meeting - our team could instantly dive into the numbers and get answers on the spot. Having this kind of immediate access to our business data through simple conversation with AI is game-changing for how we operate, furthering our ability to deliver projects on-time, on-budget, and to the highest quality standards."
CData Software is a leading provider of data access and connectivity solutions. Our self-service data products and connectivity solutions provide universal access to live data from hundreds of popular on-premises and cloud applications. Millions of users worldwide rely on CData to enable advanced analytics, boost cloud adoption, and create a more connected business. Consumable by any user, accessible within any application, and built for all enterprises, CData is redefining data-driven business.
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