Technology

Alation launches AI governance suite to meet rising need

Published

3 hours ago

October 9, 2024

Alation launches AI governance suite to meet rising need

Alation on Wednesday unveiled an AI governance suite aimed at enabling enterprises improve returns on their increasing investments in AI and machine learning projects by using secure trusted data.

The set of tools includes AI documentation and collaboration capabilities, auditable AI lineage and traceability, compliance and risk mitigation features and expert guidance — including best practices — as customers develop models and applications.

Enterprise interest in developing AI, fueled by the explosion of interest in generative AI over the past two years, is increasing. Just as rising interest in self-service analytics required enterprises to develop data governance frameworks over the past 10 to 20 years, widespread use of AI tools requires AI governance frameworks, according to Doug Henschen, an analyst at Constellation Research.

Data and AI governance frameworks are sets of guidelines that enable organizations to protect themselves from regulatory violations as they use data and AI tools to inform decisions and automate processes. Simultaneously, they enable employees to confidently use data and AI tools in their workflows.

Vendors such as Alation and Collibra have long provided data governance capabilities to provide organizations with assurance as they operationalize their data. As the use of AI capabilities increases, it makes sense for vendors to provide similar governance capabilities for operationalizing AI.

“Being a data-driven activity, the development of AI must be governed as rigorously as we govern our data, so it’s a natural extension of data governance programs,” Henschen said. “Organizations need help with these challenges, so it’s good to see metadata management — a.k.a. data intelligence — vendors adding functionality to address AI-specific risks and emerging regulatory requirements.”

Likewise, Stewart Bond, an analyst at IDC, said that there’s a real need for AI governance as enterprises increasingly rely on AI tools.

Much of the need is related to the underlying data used to train and maintain models and applications, including protecting sensitive information that needs to be kept confidential and ensuring that enterprises only use quality data, to reduce the likelihood of incorrect and potentially toxic outcomes.

“AI governance is critical,” Bond said. “Research IDC has done shows that many of the issues that drive the need for AI governance are data governance related. Without governance, laws may be broken, sensitive information leaked, or incorrect outcomes will happen, such as hallucinations.”

Based in Redwood City, Calif., Alation is a data catalog specialist whose Data Intelligence Platform enables customers to integrate and organize data from disparate sources to train AI models and applications and inform data products.

In addition to Collibra, competitors include Atlan and Informatica, among others.