Sponsored by: Actian | Scaling AI: Data Products and Contracts as the Foundation

Forget the models. Unstructured, unowned, uncontracted data is where AI goes to underdeliver. Most Gen AI initiatives deliver zero ROI, and Gartner expects 40% of agentic AI programs to be canceled by 2027. 

The analogy writes itself. Lufthansa Cargo doesn't ship freight without a manifest, a container, and a contract between shipper and carrier. Yet we routinely ship data to AI with none of that. Data products are the containers. Data contracts are the manifests. Open standards like ODCS and ODPS, part of the Linux Foundation's Bitol project, serve as a shared language that makes them readable across the supply chain.

You've invested in a lakehouse. But even the best Delta Lake architecture breaks down when AI agents can't verify data quality, trace lineage, or resolve ownership when something goes wrong. Your infrastructure is solid. The contract layer above it is missing. And organizations that close that gap are 3.4x more likely to put AI into production. We'll show how Lufthansa Cargo's Data Cargo Platform puts that principle into practice, unifying 100+ real-time sources into a governed foundation for operational intelligence, powered by the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, and delivering measurable ROI at enterprise scale.

Takeaways:

• Why data products and contracts are non-negotiable for AI-ready data
• How open standards like ODCS and ODPS de-risk AI without vendor lock-in
• A working blueprint from Lufthansa Cargo: many sources, one platform, measurable ROI