The Data Traps That Are Killing AI Initiatives

AI Proving Ground Podcast

Nearly half of today’s AI initiatives are dead on arrival. The culprit? The data. From disjointed systems and undefined use cases to cultures that overestimate readiness, WWT data strategists Bill Stanley and Jonathan Gassner break down why many organizations, and detail how you can build real momentum for AI transformation.

Support for this episode provided by: Dataminr

Learn more about this week's guests:

Jonathan Gassner is a Technical Solutions Architect at WWT specializing in data engineering. He leads pre-sales efforts, aligning sales and delivery through consultative engagement. Jonathan crafts executive briefings, workshops and GTM strategies, supporting clients across sectors. He advances AI R&D, mentors future leaders, manages partner relations and drives innovation by staying ahead of data and AI trends.

Jonathan's top pick: Data Maturity Model

William Stanley is a Chief Technology Advisor with nearly 30 years in IT, specializing in data strategy. With an MBA and BS in Computer Science, he aligns data, technology and business goals to drive outcomes. A trusted advisor and innovative leader, his expertise spans IT strategy, architecture and analytics. A lifelong educator, he also teaches a graduate big data course and brings deep, cross-industry experience to every engagement.

Bill's top pick: A Practical Playbook for AI: Driving AI Adoption in the Enterprise

The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.

Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground.

The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others.

Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC), this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.

Chapters

1. AI Projects Failing: The Data Problem (00:00:00)

2. Understanding Data Maturity Models (00:03:19)

3. Working Backward from Business Outcomes (00:08:19)

4. Clean Data: The Foundation for AI Success (00:14:24)

5. When AI Fails Silently and Confidently (00:23:22)

6. Not All Data Has Value (00:29:16)

7. Building a Data-Driven Culture (00:35:33)

8. Reaching Data Nirvana: The Optimized State (00:41:25)

9. Final Thoughts: Start with a Use Case (00:47:34)