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. At Data 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.
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AI is capturing the market in the startup space in 2026, with Crunchbase reporting that AI landed 80% of venture dollars. That means $242 billion went to AI startups and four of the five largest venture capital rounds in history closed in Q1 of 2026. Startups continue to emerge that bring fresh approaches to accelerating digital transformation, expanding what's possible with AI and analytics, breaking down silos, enhancing security, improving data observability, introducing new types of databases, maintaining data at the edge, advancing Web3, and more. Here are 30 startups DBTA thinks are worth watching in 2026.
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Everyone wants AI, and they want it now—from the C-suite to the production floor. But are their data environments ready to support a full-bore AI effort? Data industry leaders and experts we spoke with say there has been a lot of progress fulfilling AI needs, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done before today's data platforms are capable of supporting robust, AI-driven organizations.
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It's time to vote for the annual Database Trends and Applications Readers' Choice Awards, a competition in which the winning information management solutions, products, and services are selected by you, the readers. The voting period will be open through May 22.
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