Cloudera Evolve25: Enterprise AI now integrated into ‘mandatory practice’
It’s a big tipping point if it’s true.
AI data platform specialist Cloudera is suggesting that progressive AI tools and service are now being integrated into enterprise AI stacks as a matter of ‘mandatory practice’ today.
The company’s global survey report, The Evolution of AI: The State of Enterprise AI and Data Architecture examines how AI adoption has accelerated, enterprise data architectures have evolved and new challenges have emerged around securely scaling AI in 2025.
The report highlights how priorities, obstacles and goals have shifted in just this past year.
AI all data, anywhere
The company suggests that the future will be driven by AI… and AI is fueled by “all data anywhere” that data resides. Cloudera says that organisations need access to 100% of their data, no matter where it is or what type… they also need to securely govern it, without compromise.
Strikingly, perhaps, some 96% of IT leaders reported AI is at least “somewhat integrated” into their core business processes… and this is up from 2024, when 88% of survey respondents said they were currently using AI within their companies.
This may indicate that AI has gone from experimentation to full integration in core processes and workflows.
AI selection pack
Enterprises are tapping into a variety of AI forms to achieve these results, including generative (60%), deep learning (53%) and predictive (50%).
The company says that a hybrid approach to data architecture has become the norm, offering organisations the flexibility to manage AI across cloud and on-prem environments.
The biggest technical limitations identified in current data architectures when supporting AI workloads include data integration (37%), storage performance (17%) and compute power (17%). Data accessibility is another hurdle: only 9% of organisations said all of their data is available and usable for AI initiatives, while 38% reported that most of their data is accessible.
“In just a year, AI has shifted from a strategic priority to an urgent mandate, actively reshaping operations and redefining the rules of competition,” said Sergio Gago, chief technology officer at Cloudera. “But our survey shows that enterprises still face deep challenges around security, compliance and data utilisation, with many getting stuck at the proof-of-concept stage.”
Gago says that Cloudera’s mission is to bring AI to data wherever it resides i.e. public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises… while ensuring full governance, lineage and trust.
“With innovations like Private AI and secure, GPU-accelerated generative AI behind the firewall, we give enterprises the full control and confidence to unlock insights from 100% of their data and accelerate adoption in this new ‘era of convergence’ today,” stated Gago.
Wider analysis here includes the suggestion that half of respondents said data leakage during model training was a concern related to AI security, with 48% saying that this is down to unauthorised data access and 43% saying unsecure third-party AI tools.
The report was unveiled at EVOLVE25 NY, Cloudera’s flagship event series showcasing technologies that work at what the company calls ‘the intersection of AI and data’ in modern IT stacks.
