The top trend that shaped data management and analytics over the past 12 months was the rise of generative AI-powered agents.

Another trend was the continuing transformation of data platforms -- including databases, data warehouses, data lakes and data lakehouses -- to AI development environments. Still others were an increasing emphasis on data quality and the emerging importance of AI governance.

"In every customer call, they are saying they're doing more with GenAI, or at least thinking about it," said Diby Malakar, vice president of product management at data catalog vendor Alation. "And one of the first few things they talk about is how to govern those assets -- assets as in AI models, feature stores and anything that could be used as input into the AI or the machine learning lifecycle."

But those were just some of the trends that shaped data management and analytics in 2024. Most were influenced by the surging interest in AI development that kicked off in late 2022, when OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT marked a dramatic improvement in generative AI technology.

When combined with an enterprise's proprietary data, generative AI models can make employees more knowledgeable and efficient. Therefore, enterprises have naturally invested heavily in AI development. Data management and analytics vendors have responded, recognizing market demands for tools that simplify the use of data to train models and applications.

Those demands led to trends. The following are six of the most significant that emerged over the past year: