A modern data fabric allows businesses to turn their knowledge into a trusted foundation for artificial intelligence. As AI becomes embedded in core workflows, the quality and context of data become critical.

According to Irfan Khan from SAP Data & Analytics, without this business context, AI can make wrong decisions as quickly as it produces results. He notes that traditional data strategies often focus on aggregation, but this loses much of the meaning attached to the data.

The right data fabric supports safe scaling of AI, coordination across systems and agents, and ensures automation reflects real business priorities. As a result, one system might make strategic decisions while another acts in isolation due to missing context.

This realization is changing how companies think about AI readiness, with few currently having mature data processes and infrastructure. The emerging solution is a data fabric that spans infrastructure, architecture, and logical organization, providing the foundation for agent-to-agent communication and coordination.