DM Radio

Hosted by Eric Kavanagh

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323

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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About the show

DM Radio is the world's longest-running show about data! Since 2008, we've interviewed the industry's brightest minds about AI, analytics, big data, cloud, data warehousing, digital transformation, Internet of Things (IoT), streaming and many other topics. Now broadcasting coast-to-coast, we're always looking for new voices. Send an email to info@dmradio.biz!

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60 recent

June 11, 202652 min

The 'Death' of Analytics Vendors

A mass extinction event approaches, but not because of a meteor or global warming. The culprit this time is AI, and in particular, Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Claude. In their crosshairs are a slew of vendors selling analytical functionality: dashboards, visualizations, analyses, semantic layers, OLAP cubes and the like. For decades, these vendors have dominated enterprise decision-making, commanding 5, 6, even 7-figure pricetags to provide the scaffolding needed for insights. The LLMs now threaten that entire landscape, disrupting the foundation of data-driven workflows. True, the results of GenAI can be inaccurate, but their ease of use and relatively low cost will trump those concerns. Check out this hard-hitting session to hear DM Radio Host, Eric Kavanagh explain what's happening and why it matters to analysts everywhere. He'll examine the impact on the analytics industry, and explore ways that these vendors can stay relevant. He'll also offer advice for businesses looking to remain data-driven, and why data prep is where the action will be.

June 5, 202652 min

AI-Native Innovation: Synthetic Market Research and the Future of SaaS

Join this episode of DM Radio as host Eric Kavanagh speaks with Kamila Zahradnickova of Lakmoos and Tim Lidman of Clyde about two distinct but transformative applications of AI. Learn how Lakmoos uses mathematical simulation models and AI-powered digital twins to help organizations test products, campaigns, and business decisions before launching them in the real world. Next, learn lessons from building and selling ThinkTank to Accenture and why SaaS is evolving - not disappearing - as AI-native applications reshape software design and user experiences. Explore how AI is changing everything from market research and customer insights to enterprise workflows and software development.

May 28, 202645 min

Technical Debt: The Hand You Hold...

In their song, Everything to Everyone, the band Everclear gave voice to every IT team on the planet who struggles to keep the lights on due to the ever-rising tide of technical debt and SaaS licensing. "The hand you hold is the hand that holds you down!" Of course, they were likely not explicitly referencing the IT landscape, but the mantra surely sticks. Today, at long last, there is a ray of hope for these battle-tested administrators, in the form of Deterministic Enterprise-native AI that promises more deterministic results. While GenAI grabs all the headlines for writing everything from press releases to poetry, a handful of enterprise engineers have been busy crafting a hybrid solution that fuses the generative power of LLMs, with the determinism of enterprise systems of record. Register for this DM Radio to learn how today's innovators are building solutions that are agile and bulletproof. Host Eric Kavanagh will be joined by industry legend Sam Yen, former Chief Innovation Officer for JPMorganChance, now the GM for Everest Systems. He'll show how hybrid AI systems are eclipsing legacy architectures, and solving technical debt once and for all.

May 20, 202645 min

Training the Machines: The Race for High-Value AI Data

Join this episode of DM Radio, as host Eric Kavanagh sits down with Marty Pesis of Troveo AI to explore one of the most critical - and least understood - layers of the AI economy: training data. From licensing massive video and audio libraries to structuring petabytes of content for frontier AI labs, you'll learn how data quality, uniqueness, and scale are shaping the next generation of AI models. Dive into the operational realities of managing enormous datasets, the growing value of proprietary content, and why differentiated training data may become the true competitive advantage in AI. Take an inside look at the infrastructure powering today's AI boom - and the business models emerging around it.

May 14, 202655 min

Metadata at the Space Force and Beyond

Space, the final frontier... for metadata! Space is no longer just a theater of rockets, launches, and satellites. It's a data domain, where mission success depends on the ability to collect, govern, correlate, protect, and move information faster than adversaries can react. Join this episode of DM Radio to learn from former Space Force CDO Mark Brady, along with Hammerspace CEO David Flynn, and Director Robert Renzoni. They'll explore the criticality of metadata management at scale, from outer space, down to the largest, most complex organizations in the world.

April 30, 202651 min

How Do Agentic Data Pipelines Work?

The first generation of data pipelines was built for humans. They moved data. They often broke. Engineers stepped in to fix them. While that world still exists, it now shares the stage with something far more demanding. Today, machines and AI systems are first-class consumers of data. The workload requirements are exploding, rendering the manually tuned, hand-patched pipelines woefully insufficient. Data-driven organizations require a new paradigm, one in which an army of specialized agents are at-the-ready to scale and adapt. Register for this episode of DM Radio to learn about the dawn of Agentic Data Pipelines. Host Eric Kavanagh will be joined by Sami Akbay, founder of Dagen.ai, who will explain why traditional pipelines are failing in the AI era. He'll give a presentation on the architecture of these dynamic pipelines, which employ Super-Agents that orchestrate an array of specialists. Attendees will learn: * Where LLMs fit into production data systems, and where they don't * Why memory + guardrails mark the difference between demos and production * How teams are going from prompt to production in hours, not weeks

April 27, 202652 min

Six Rules of Safe AI with Mark Brady

Join this episode of DM Radio, as host Eric Kavanagh speaks with Mark Brady, Chief Data Officer of TRMC/KBR, ex CDO for US Space Force, about the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and the urgent need for clearer safety principles. Hi will share his perspective on how intelligence works across humans and machines, from perception and memory to language and reasoning, and why today's AI systems challenge traditional definitions. Learn more about the risks of opaque "black box" models and why understanding their behavior is critical as they become more powerful and widely deployed.

April 24, 202652 min

A Sovereign Wealth Fund for Data?

Since time immemorial, the concept of sovereignty has defined control, whether for nations or legal authorities. Today, the rise of AI is forcing a global reckoning around one of the most important and misunderstood aspects of modern computing: data sovereignty. First there was GDPR, the Global Data Protection Regulation out of the European Union; then the CCPA, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA); and now, there are nearly 150 countries around the world with related laws and regulations on the books. What's a data team to do? Register for this very special DM Radio to learn from several experts, including James Robson, former Chief Data Protection Officer for the United Kingdom's Labour Party; along with Floyd Christofferson and Seamus Matthews of Hammerspace, as they dive into the gritty details of what data sovereignty means, and how companies can achieve it. Attendees will learn: * Why data sovereignty is becoming a defining constraint, and opportunity, for enterprise AI * The infrastructure realities of managing data across borders, clouds, and jurisdictions * How global enterprises can balance compliance with performance and innovation * What emerging geopolitical dynamics mean for data strategy and governance moving forward

April 8, 202653 min

Rethinking Data Trust with Blockchain

Join this episode of DMRadio as host Eric Kavanagh speaks with Xin Yan, CEO of Sign, about how blockchain is reshaping the way organizations establish trust in data. Learn how decentralized technologies and identity frameworks can help verify information, reduce reliance on intermediaries, and improve transparency. Hear more about misconceptions about blockchain and where it delivers real value beyond cryptocurrency.

April 2, 202653 min

Reporting for Duty: Why Architecture Matters

Amid all the noise of AI hype, one thing remains constant: organizations still rely on trusted, reliable reporting as the foundation for decision-making. In fact, reporting is becoming more critical in an AI-first world, because governed, auditable data underpins every intelligent outcome. The question is how to architect for performance, scalability, and user expectations. In this episode of DM Radio, Host Eric Kavanagh will be joined by Evelyn Chou and Jeff Hainsworth of insightsoftware Data + Analytics. We'll explore how architectural choices fundamentally shape reporting outcomes. Where should processing occur? There are key differences between web-based and server-side approaches, such as tradeoffs in interactivity, precision, scalability, and embedded analytics. We'll also discuss the growing case for a hybrid strategy, where multiple reporting engines work together to meet diverse enterprise needs. From high-volume, back-end report generation to rich, interactive user experiences, modern analytics stacks increasingly demand flexibility, which should ideally be baked into the analytic architecture, not bolted on.