AI success hinges on heavy data and governance investment

Rita Sallam, VP analyst, Gartner Fellow, and chief of research at Gartner, said D&A leaders carry significant responsibility in realising AI’s potential.

“D&A leaders play a central role in achieving their organisation’s AI value ambition,” Sallam said. “Through 2030, the D&A leader’s mandate is to deliver foundational areas, including new trusted data, context foundations, and perceptive intelligence. Responding to this mandate will require shifts in how the D&A team organises and works, builds and scales, and creates value.”

Smaller “decision pod” teams expected to emerge

Gartner outlined six shifts it says D&A leaders must make through 2030. The first calls for building towards an AI-first approach, requiring what Gartner described as pioneering leadership to apply new technology in high-value, innovative ways rather than making incremental changes.

The second shift concerns restructuring D&A organisations around human–agent collaboration. Sallam said smaller teams, which she described as “decision pods”, would become the norm.

“The future is not about replacing humans, but amplifying their ingenuity,” Sallam said. “Because AI will create extra capacity, D&A teams will shrink in size and expand in impact. We see pacesetting companies experimenting with teams as small as one ‘technical’ person and one ‘business’ person.”