Prerequisite: None
Metadata once lived quietly in the background of data management, noticed mainly when something went wrong. It now carries a new importance. As organizations build AI pipelines alongside BI programs, metadata has become the glue that holds them together: establishing provenance, sustaining trust, and making governance legible across the enterprise.
In this session, TDWI research fellow Donald Farmer will present TDWI's latest research and insights on the state of metadata management, with particular attention to how automation, semantic layers, and data observability are reshaping what organizations can realistically achieve.
Farmer will also moderate a panel discussion examining where the research meets the reality of implementation, including the organizational habits that either accelerate or quietly undermine even well-designed frameworks. The discussion will address what distinguishes programs that mature beyond cataloguing into genuine data intelligence, and what it takes to make metadata a strategic resource rather than a maintenance burden.