Businesses have never had greater and more varied data at their disposal. But the stubborn issue of data silos continues to plague what they can do with it.

AI alone can’t fix this. AI is only as useful as the quality of the data that it has access to. And all the hype and promise of agentic AI will run into this same roadblock.

Gartner predicts that 60% of AI projects will be abandoned through 2026 because they lack “AI-ready data.”

Scott Brinker has long advocated the rise of a “universal data layer” in marketing technology, which is just now starting to become a reality. This shift to a universal data layer was a core theme in his 2025 State of Martech report.

And yet much of the historic challenge of data silos isn’t technological, it’s organizational. It’s rooted in how teams are structured. Part of the solution will remain human and messy.

As Scott put it in the 2025 State of Martech report:

“Moore’s Law gave birth to Martec’s Law, the challenging juxtaposition that while technology changes exponentially, organizations change logarithmically.

“That creaking sound you hear is you and your team being stretched between those two rapidly diverging curves. It’s like a yoga class taught by Genghis Khan.

“We began our last report quoting Ethan Mollick’s estimate that if AI development stopped where it was, we’d still have 5-10 years of work ahead to absorb it into our current organizations and social systems.

“Now, just half a year later, Mollick has revised his position, saying, ‘If Al development stopped today (and no indication that is happening), we have a couple of decades of figuring out how to integrate it into work, education, & life.’”

Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years: