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Informatica’s “CDO Insights 2026” report reveals a growing “trust paradox” in AI adoption: while 69% of organizations have integrated Generative AI and 47% are using agentic AI, rapid deployment is outpacing critical foundations—data reliability, governance, and workforce literacy—creating significant risks and barriers to production-scale success.
The global survey of 600 data leaders across the U.S., UK/EU, and APAC shows explosive growth in AI usage, yet persistent gaps in data readiness and governance threaten long-term value and compliance. While GenAI and agentic AI adoption have surged, organizations struggle to operationalize these technologies at scale due to poor data quality, inconsistent governance, and insufficient workforce skills.
Poor data reliability remains the leading obstacle, with 57% of respondents viewing it as a key barrier to production deployment. This challenge is even more pronounced for agentic AI, where half of leaders identify data quality as the top issue. Meanwhile, 76% acknowledge that governance frameworks lag behind employee AI usage, heightening exposure to privacy breaches, ethical concerns, security vulnerabilities, and regulatory non-compliance.
Workforce readiness is another critical gap. Three-quarters (75%) of data leaders say employees require stronger data literacy, while 74% highlight the need for AI literacy training to enable responsible, day-to-day use. Without these skills, even trusted data sources may be misused or misinterpreted, undermining AI-driven decisions.
Despite these hurdles, 65% of leaders report high internal trust in the data used for AI—creating a “trust paradox” where confidence in data exists alongside widespread concerns about quality, governance, and literacy.
In response, 86% of organizations plan to increase data management spending in 2026. Key drivers include:
These investments reflect a strategic shift toward building reliable foundations that support responsible, scalable AI adoption.
Amanda Fitzsimmons, Senior Director of Customer Data at RS Group, commented: "This report highlights the significant risks of accelerating AI adoption without strong data governance and literacy. At RS Group, we address this challenge by embedding governance and accountability into how we evaluate and scale AI initiatives. For all AI initiatives, we thoroughly evaluate the technological, security, legal, and strategic implications to maximize opportunities while minimizing risks. This approach helps ensure innovation moves forward responsibly, with risks understood and value clearly defined from the outset. Through investments in robust data-driven solutions, comprehensive upskilling, and close collaboration with partners like Informatica, we believe we are taking the essential steps to foster trusted, responsible AI that delivers real, measurable value to our customers and employees.”
“The promise of AI is immense, but so are the risks if you don’t have confidence in a reliable data foundation,” said Krish Vitaldevara, Chief Product Officer at Informatica. “Our CDO Insights 2026 report reveals a ‘trust paradox’, although employees generally trust the data used for AI, many are lacking in data and AI literacy skills, and organizations lack underlying AI governance structures for achieving the responsible and ethical outcomes they desire. This poses significant risk exposure and hurts confidence in AI initiatives.”
“For AI to deliver its transformative outcomes and ROI, organizations must prioritize data reliability, invest in rigorous AI governance and upskill their workforce to help ensure their AI-driven decision making is based on trusted, high-quality data and everyone in the organization knows how to use it responsibly,” Vitaldevara added.
The “CDO Insights 2026” report also explores regional differences, data management priorities, vendor approaches, and prioritized AI-powered use cases. To access the full report, visit the link provided in the original release.
About Informatica
Informatica from Salesforce is a leader in AI-powered enterprise cloud data management. Its Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) platform enables organizations to connect, manage and unify AI-ready data across the enterprise. With capabilities spanning data cataloging, integration, governance, quality, privacy, metadata management and master data management, Informatica supports a broad partner ecosystem and helps customers unlock the full value of their data and AI initiatives.
About Salesforce
Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, empowering companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way through the power of artificial intelligence, data, and trust.
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