CIO First Look

June 21, 2025

In this weekend’s edition, we frontload content that centers on aligning effective AI strategies, and the means to raise the bar of success as the tech dramatically advances.

The common thread, of course, is data health and without it, any implementation isn’t going to meet expectations, or assure the C-suite that tools heavily invested in aren’t just rotting on the vine. So having that foundation of quality data is the prerequisite means to achieve what AES CDO Alejandro Reyes calls sustainable AI. You need to balance implementing data governance but in a way that doesn’t disrupt work patterns, he says.

And no conversation about AI initiatives is complete without discussing AI agents, considering the large impact they’re having in business. Even though they’re quite new on the scene and many organizations are naturally at the beginning of their agentic AI journeys, breakthroughs will happen when agents are strung together and get organized, says Ryan Janssen, CEO at AI-powered BI vendor Zenlytic. Getting the data right, though, comes first.

Carl Friedmann, Executive Regional Editor, CIO

How CIOs are getting data right for AI

Quality data is vital for the success of any IT initiative. That’s especially true for AI projects. While bad data will always yield bad results, the stakes are exceptionally high for AI, where poor data could lead to serious financial loss, regulatory fines, and reputational damage. Good data that feeds a successful initiative, however, could deliver a significant and possibly game-changing strategic advantage.

“In the world of AI, it’s garbage-in, garbage-out — squared,” says Satya Jayadev, vice president and CIO at Skyworks Solutions, a maker of semiconductors for wireless networks. “The secret of any good AI system is how well you build your data layers. It’s important to build that architecture and infrastructure — to understand the data source, to generate the data, and to build a single data platform,” Jayadev says.

9 mins