Data Products & Platforms: State of Industry Report 2026

As generative AI and agentic workflows reshape the enterprise, traditional data management has hit its limit. Moving past central warehouses and passive data lakes, leading organisations are shifting towards scalable, governed, and reusable data products to power autonomous operations and drive measurable ROI.

Benchmarking insights from data and architecture leaders, this report provides a practical blueprint for building AI-ready data foundations, modernising legacy estates, and scaling distributed platforms across complex European regulatory environments.

Key Themes

- Shifting to Scalable Data Products: Executive Summary on moving from internal data assets to scalable, business-led products.
 -Cultivating Value: Treating data as a product by shifting organisational culture from technology-first to business value.
- AI-Ready Foundations: Strengthening data quality, metadata management, and automated lineage to feed agentic workflows.
- Scaling Platforms Safely: Navigating distributed architectures (Data Mesh) while embedding policy-driven governance and security.
- Commercialisation Pathways: Evaluating strategies for monetising data assets internally versus launching external commercial offerings.
- Business-Led ROI & Compliance: Quantifying tangible impact while retrofitting compliance into existing architectures within regional contexts.
+ Plus get a unique look at the Regional Context: An analysis focused on European enterprise drivers, regulatory frameworks and risk appetite versus UK data enterprise drivers. 

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