Data Platforms Gearing up to Enable AI Revolution – ISG - September 10, 2025
Agentic and generative AI are introducing new enterprise requirements for management and use of data, and leading software providers are meeting the moment with innovative hybrid data platforms, according to new research from global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG).
The ISG Buyers Guides for Data Platforms, produced by ISG Software Research, provide the rankings and ratings of 38 software providers and their products to support data storage, processing, analysis and presentation. The research finds that the traditional distinction between analytic and operational data platforms is blurring as more business applications use real-time, AI-powered analytic processing for functions such as personalization, real-time predictions and contextually relevant recommendations. To enable intelligent applications driven by GenAI and machine learning, providers are delivering data platform capabilities to support hybrid operational and analytic workloads.
“Enterprises have become totally dependent on data platforms for business analysis and operations,” said Matt Aslett, director of research, Analytics, Data & AI, for ISG Software Research. “As AI expands and transforms enterprise uses of data, platforms are rapidly evolving to support the inferencing capabilities of intelligent operational applications.”
Matt Aslett, at ISG
Most companies use a variety of data platforms to support a range of application requirements. Increasingly, they deploy data platforms on cloud infrastructure or consume their functionality as managed services, seeking to increase agility, the research finds. When choosing a data platform, the fundamental question companies have considered is whether it will be used for workloads that are operational (used to run the business) or analytic (used to analyze the business). Operational data platforms support functions such as finance, sales, human capital management and customer experience, while analytic platforms serve workloads such as business intelligence, decision support and data science.
Different data platform architectures have evolved to maximize query performance for each category of workload. However, ISG predicts that through 2027, data platform providers will prioritize the development of hybrid operational and analytic functionality to fulfill new application requirements created by GenAI. Providers will deliver a combination of these types of functionality with either one or a set of data platform products. These moves will address market demand: By 2027, ISG expects two-thirds of enterprises to adopt new operational database products to meet the AI requirements of intelligent applications.
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