If the AI boom has made one thing clear, it’s this: data isn’t just the fuel—it’s the steering wheel. Starburst, the data platform for apps and AI, is doubling down on that message with AI & Datanova 2025, set for October 9 at The Westin New York Times Square.

The one-day in-person event promises a mix of strategy, tech deep dives, and forward-looking predictions. Expect a crowd heavy on CDOs, CIOs, CTOs, chief architects, and data power users—translation: the people actually responsible for making sure AI doesn’t collapse under the weight of bad data.

Borgman’s Keynote: The Enterprise Agent Era

The highlight? Two keynotes from CEO and co-founder Justin Borgman, who plans to take attendees on a tour of the near-future enterprise AI landscape. The tentpole topics:

• Enterprise Agents — AI-powered, autonomous systems that can execute complex business tasks across functions.

• The Data Readiness Gap — Why companies with governed, high-quality, and accessible data will be the only ones still standing in three to five years.

• Blueprints for Scale — The critical role of federated query, governance, and real-time data access in fueling AI apps that work in practice, not just in PowerPoint.

• Predictions for the AI-Driven Enterprise — From reshaped decision-making to entirely new categories of customer experience.

Borgman’s positioning isn’t theoretical. Starburst has built its reputation helping organizations unify and query data across silos, and he’s expected to share real-world customer use cases that show where the data-to-AI pipeline breaks—and how leading firms are patching it.

Executives from Arity, Expedia, OCBC Bank, and others will round out the speaker lineup, offering cross-industry perspectives.

Not Just Talk: The Datanova Edge

Lisa Luscap, CMO of Starburst, pitched the event as less hype, more hands-on strategy:

“AI & Datanova 2025 is designed to give data and technology leaders the strategies, insights, and peer connections they need to drive tangible AI outcomes.”

That’s a deliberate framing in a market increasingly flooded with AI conferences long on buzzwords and short on actionable detail. For Starburst, the event also positions its platform as the bridge between raw enterprise data and AI apps that actually deliver.

The Data Visionary Awards

Alongside the event, Starburst opened nominations for its 2025 Data Visionary Awards, celebrating customers and partners who’ve turned data into competitive advantage. Categories span everything from the AI & Data Visionary Award to the Impact Through AI Award and Data Disruptor Award, with regional and partner-specific honors as well.

Key dates:

• Deadline for submissions: September 5, 2025

• Winners announced: October 9, live at AI & Datanova 2025 in NYC

• Eligibility: Customers, partners, and employees can submit entries, with multiple nominations allowed.

The awards serve a dual purpose—spotlighting customer success stories while showcasing how Starburst’s platform underpins real-world transformation.

The timing couldn’t be sharper. With generative AI hype cooling into questions of ROI and operational reality, enterprises are increasingly focused on data readiness. Analysts have warned that without strong governance and high-quality inputs, AI deployments risk hallucinations, compliance failures, or worse—irrelevance.

By positioning itself at the crossroads of data infrastructure and enterprise AI, Starburst is angling for the sweet spot: enabling companies to connect disparate data sources in real time while making that data usable by AI systems. In other words, if AI is the brain, Starburst wants to be the circulatory system.

And the concept of Enterprise Agents—autonomous AI systems that don’t just analyze but act—is one of the most closely watched frontiers in enterprise tech. If Borgman’s predictions pan out, we may soon see data-driven bots handling everything from pricing adjustments to customer service workflows, backed by clean, federated data.

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