We as a society have spent years trying to unlock information. Now the harder problem is knowing which information deserves our attention. I believe the next great data challenge is not access.
Search engines can surface it in seconds. AI can summarize it, compare it, and answer questions about it. Remember the needle in a haystack?
The needles are no longer hidden. The real challenge now is discernment. It is finding the right data that matters to a particular business, recognizing when it changes, and presenting it to the right person at precisely the right moment.
Global consulting firm McKinsey reported this year that nearly two-thirds of enterprises have experimented with AI agents, yet fewer than 10 percent have scaled them to deliver tangible value. Eight in 10 companies cite data limitations as a roadblock. The numbers should make us pause.
We are building sophisticated intelligence on top of a very old question. What information should this system actually pay attention to? I think about it like hiring a brilliant new employee.
You give that person extraordinary capabilities, then hand them a desk and say, "Go." What happens next? They need to know what matters, what does not, what deserves escalation, and when you need to hear from them. Give a highly capable employee the wrong information, and they can move very quickly in the wrong direction.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
