The IT Nerd

At its second annual Foundations conference, CData Software announced Connect AI, the first managed Model Context Protocol (MCP) platform that integrates AI assistants, agent orchestration platforms, AI workflow automation, and embedded AI applications with more than 300 enterprise data sources. With governed, in-place access to enterprise data, Connect AI preserves data semantics and relationships, giving AI complete understanding of the context. The solution also inherits user permissions and authentication directly from the source and can be deployed in the cloud or embedded within software products in minutes with point-and-click configuration.

Connect AI takes the same enterprise-grade connectivity technology already embedded by top technology companies including Palantir, SAP, Salesforce Data Cloud, and Google Cloud into their offerings, and reimagines it specifically for AI workloads with real-time semantic integration capabilities.

The solution builds on the momentum of the company’s MCP Servers, which have already seen thousands of users connect hundreds of data sources to AI assistants. The adoption validates AI’s need for governed enterprise data integration that understands context and relationships.

Breaking the Enterprise AI Deployment Barriers

Connect AI solves two core challenges MIT identified in its recent research. MIT reported that despite $30-40 billion in enterprise AI investment, 95% of AI pilots fail to deliver measurable business impact, primarily due to data access and governance challenges.

First, through data-in-place access, Connect AI preserves the rich contextual relationships that AI agents need for intelligent decision-making, delivering both immediate data access and meaningful data understanding.

Second, Connect AI inherits existing security and authentication protocols set in the source system ensuring AI access remains aligned with organizational controls. Data access is logged under the identity of the authenticated user or agent for comprehensive governance. Additional AI controls can be layered and managed within Connect AI.

Immediate Impact on Enterprises’ and Software Providers’ Use of AI

Enterprises use Connect AI with AI apps to get contextually-aware answers from business data in seconds; work that previously required days or weeks of report building. Its ability to handle complex queries across diverse systems with semantic understanding enables sales teams to use Claude for pipeline insights, marketing teams to prompt ChatGPT for campaign analysis, and finance teams to rely on Copilot for real-time budget updates and financial reports. IT and AI Engineering teams can also power agents built through AI workflow automation and agent orchestration platforms with direct, scalable access to semantically-rich enterprise data.

ISVs embed Connect AI directly within their products to provide their end-users with self-service integration between their data sources and the ISV’s agentic capabilities. The white-label offering gives tech companies an edge in the race for AI users because their agents can operate on the full semantic context of their end-users’ business, and not just on data brought directly into their products.

Industry Validation and Market Opportunity

This proven connectivity technology validates CData’s critical role in enterprise data connectivity and the company’s expansion into AI-native integration.

Availability

Connect AI is immediately available. More details are available here: www.cdata.com/ai

 CData Software today announced an expansion of its partnership with SAP focused on SAP Business Data Cloud–a  fully managed SaaS solution that unifies and governs all SAP data and seamlessly connects with third-party data. The collaboration aims to help customers connect to the data they care about most, by providing seamless, real-time access to the external data sources that modern enterprises depend on–without requiring data replication or custom code. 

Enabling Immediate, Self-Service Data Access

CData’s embeddable connectors provide direct, enterprise-grade integration to critical third-party platforms. Through the partnership, customers can access data, whether stored in cloud services, on-prem databases, or productivity tools, through a consistent, SQL-based interface.

By embedding CData connectors into SAP Business Data Cloud, SAP can provide its customers with access to non-SAP data, and improve their time-to-insight across AI, analytics, and operational workloads.

Driving the Shift Toward Open, AI-Ready Data

CData’s connector infrastructure helps ensure that every integration point meets the speed, security, and scale demands of AI-driven environments.

The expanded partnership comes at a time of significant growth for CData’s Embedded business, which has seen increased demand from software providers looking to offer connectivity to a growing variety of data sources. This momentum is fueled by the rising need for AI-ready data and the pressure on software providers to deliver immediate, self-service access to the data sources their users prioritize.

CData’s market leadership was recently validated by its inclusion in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools. This recognition reflects the differentiated business outcomes CData delivers to customers through its comprehensive connectivity solutions and integration capabilities.

This announcement follows CData’s strategic growth funding of approximately $350 million led by Warburg Pincus, with participation from Accel, announced in June 2024. The investment has allowed CData to accelerate its mission of simplifying data connectivity for enterprises, users, and applications through continued investments in operations, product development, and go-to-market strategy.

For more information about CData’s embedded connectivity solutions, visit www.cdata.com/embedded.