Gartner® Report: Prepare for the Inevitable Rise of Self-Service Data Management
Learn why AI is making self-service data management an operational necessity — and how to enable governed, scalable self-service without sacrificing control or creating chaos.
Self-Service Is No Longer Optional
The new Gartner research reveals that “GenAI-powered tools have significantly reduced the skills barrier, allowing employees to conduct tasks that were previously limited to technical stakeholders. This shift is rapidly expanding the ability of less-technical users to access, use and manage data independently.”
From our point of view, this report validates why organizations must proactively shape self-service data management rather than react to shadow IT and ungoverned data sprawl as GenAI makes self-service inevitable.
What we think you’ll learn:
- Why self-service is inevitable: How AI/GenAI is already enabling business users to perform data integration, quality management, and analysis without IT support
- The risks of doing nothing: Shadow IT, governance gaps, security vulnerabilities, and competitive disadvantage for organizations that don’t act proactively
- How to enable safe, governed self-service: Clear strategies for balancing user autonomy with central oversight through federated data management
- Technology requirements: What capabilities and guardrails your platform needs to support enterprise-scale self-service
The research provides practical recommendations for D&A leaders to establish governance frameworks, adopt federated operating models, and invest in enabling technologies that make self-service both powerful and safe.
Gartner, Prepare for the Inevitable Rise of Self-Service Data Management, 27 August 2025, Nina Showell
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