Spotlight Two: Data Makes the World Go Round with Dr. Fern Halper

Why Most Enterprise AI Projects Hit a "Value Ceiling" — And How to Break Through | Dr. Fern Halper

What separates the companies actually winning with AI from the ones burning budget on chatbots that go nowhere? In this upcoming episode of Redefining AI, host Lauren Hawker Zafer sits down with Dr. Fern Halper — VP of Research at TDWI, Founder of the AI Foundations Group, former Bell Labs lead analyst, and one of the most respected voices in enterprise AI strategy — to unpack the ideas behind her highly anticipated new book, Data Makes the World Go 'Round: The Data, Tech, and Trust Behind AI Success.

With over 30 years bridging deep technical execution and C-suite strategy, Dr. Halper explains why so many organisations are stuck chasing hype instead of value, and what it actually takes to move AI from lab experiments into production systems that drive real ROI.

Inside this upcoming episode, you'll learn:

• Why generative AI hits a "value ceiling" without trusted, governed data foundations
• The execution traps that sank AI initiatives at Zillow, Amazon, and others
• How data lakehouses and data fabric architectures unify siloed data for AI
• Why MLOps is so hard — and why every model eventually degrades
• The critical difference between data governance and AI governance
• How agentic AI changes the risk equation when systems start taking autonomous actions
• The shift from controlling what AI produces to overseeing what AI does
• How to tie AI use cases to measurable KPIs instead of vanity metrics
• Embedding fairness, explainability, and EU AI Act compliance without killing innovation
• Defending against shadow AI while democratising analytics across the business

Whether you're a CDO, CIO, VP of Data, AI product leader, or a business executive under pressure from your board to "do something with AI," this is the strategic playbook you've been waiting for.

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📘 Get the book: Data Makes the World Go 'Round: The Data, Tech, and Trust Behind AI Success by Dr. Fern Halper

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