The modern data stack was built for a world of dashboards and batch pipelines, but AI agents are breaking it. The scarcest resource is no longer compute or storage, but the talent to reduce platform complexity.
Further, traditional boundaries between operational and analytical databases are dissolving. The separation between roles and use is collapsing into a single operational discipline as AI systems blur the line between applications and data pipelines.
AtData Summit 2026, on May 6 – 7 in Boston, with pre-conference workshops on May 5,Sanjeev Mohan, principal, SanjMo and former Gartner Research, VP, data and analytics, will examine trends reshaping every layer of the AI-driven data foundation, from storage to governance to operations, during his keynote speech.
John O’Brien, program chair for the event and principal advisor, industry analyst atRadiant Advisors, spoke to Mohan on behalf ofDBTAto get the rundown on the importance of this keynote address.
Mohan is a recognized thought leader in cloud technologies, data architectures, analytics, and artificial intelligence. With a keen focus on emerging trends and technologies, Sanjeev hosts theIt Dependspodcast and authors regularMediumblogs. He is also the author of Data Product for Dummies.
He regularly delivers engaging presentations on topics such as end-to-end data pipelines and strategies to maximize business value from data assets. Through his work, Mohan empowers businesses to stay ahead in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
What are you currently working on or what’s exciting you these days about the industry?
What people are asking me for the most is what is the future state architecture that unifies data and AI? And people want an answer, they want a definitive architecture. But the way the technology is changing and how rapidly it’s changing, we have more questions than we have answers.
That’s why I go to all these events because this is how I learn and find out about all these things are going on. And for example, we all talk about how amazing LLMs are, but LLMs are only as useful as how good your data is. For that, you need semantic layers. In the whole space of semantics, now we have context graphs, we have new standards like open semantic interchange.
So, security is a huge part because agents can talk to agents, but how do you make sure that it’s not about MCP or A2A, it’s about who has an authorization to see what and am I bubbling up those security concerns all the way up to the agents?
Is that going to be part of your keynote?
Yes, I’m a keen observer of trends and signals in the industry. So, I’m bringing those to the conference.
Based on that, what are some of the things that you’re seeing in the industry that teams are doing to stay on that leading edge nowadays? Is there any one trend you find teams doing at companies?
The most important thing companies can do is experiment and be hands-on. Research can only take you so far. You just have to try it out.
If you have a select few vendors and these vendors are saying, “We now have an agent development toolkit that helps you create agents faster than anybody else,” you would give it a shot. Whether we call it vibe coding or whatever, the fact is that it is now extremely easy to onboard a new use case using these AI tools. So, I tell people, just use them, give it a shot and see it for yourself.
Is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to about this event?
These events are a gold mine to learn what’s going on in the industry because the best way to learn is from the practitioners who are trying these things. And so when you meet people in one place, that’s where the real learning takes place.
Register nowto attend the 13th annualData Summit, taking place in Boston on May 6–7, 2026, with pre-conference workshops on May 5.