Actian’s “data contract first” principle enables full visibility and control over distributed data assets, from creation to consumption
ROUND ROCK, Texas, June 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Actian, the data division of HCLSoftware, today announced Actian Data Intelligence Platform enhancements that enable enterprises to transform how they make distributed data trustworthy and reliable at the source before consumption, creating a solid foundation for AI implementations. The new capabilities automate data products and integrate data contracts to foster greater trust in data, ensuring accuracy and reliability to accelerate AI and data-driven initiatives.
Actian’s “data contract first” approach embeds governance by design early in the data lifecycle using shift-left principles via data contracts and automated processes. This ensures data products, which are created by individual domains, are well-documented and easy to use with quality guarantees from the start.
As enterprises embrace distributed data architectures, the need for data product approaches becomes critical. ISG Software Research predicts that “by 2027, more than 6 in 10 enterprises will adopt technologies to facilitate the delivery of data as a product.”¹
“As enterprises embrace data products to enable self-service analytics, they require robust data quality and governance,” said Matt Aslett, Director of Research, Analytics and Data at ISG Software Research. “By incorporating these controls directly into data pipelines, the Actian Data Intelligence Platform is designed to enable enterprises to scale to data democratization safely.”
To address this need, the Actian Data Intelligence Platform embeds data contracts directly into development workflows to define clear expectations, enforce compliance automatically, and catch quality issues at the source before they propagate downstream. The result is more reliable AI outcomes, faster time-to-insight, reduced compliance risk, and lower operational costs.
To facilitate data discovery, individual domains publish their tailored data products into the enterprise data marketplace in the Actian Data Intelligence Platform. Dedicated APIs automatically register and update data products within existing continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, reducing manual efforts and ensuring data catalogs stay current.
“The challenge of decentralized environments isn’t just managing data across domains – it’s ensuring quality and governance at scale,” said Emma McGrattan, CTO at Actian. “Making high-quality, well-documented data products easily accessible with the Actian Data Intelligence Platform improves data democratization and enables a data-sharing culture, while our data contract first approach ensures reliable data from source to consumption.”
The platform supports decentralized data ownership, breaking down silos to improve collaboration and democratize data across business and IT users. With streamlined data discovery and consumption, business users can quickly find, understand, and use the exact data they need. The platform’s federated knowledge graph-powered search engine delivers context-aware results while maintaining enterprise-wide compliance. Access request workflows provide centralized, transparent approval processes with clear audit trails.
To further enhance data accessibility, Ask AI, Actian’s new AI-powered natural language query capability allows users to search using everyday language to ask questions, with relevant results ranked by the organization’s glossary. This capability eliminates technical barriers and accelerates self-service analytics across the organization.
The new capabilities work across federated metamodels while delivering complete data lineage visibility. When combined with Actian Data Observability, organizations can ensure data products conform to established data contracts. By enriching well-defined data assets with context, quality metrics, lineage, and usage insights, organizations can better leverage data for AI and other use cases.
The new data contract and data product features are available immediately in the Actian Data Intelligence Platform. The Ask AI capability is in private preview. For more information about the new features and others now available, review the “Data Contracts, AI Search, and More: Actian’s Spring ’25 Product Launch” blog.
About Actian
Actian empowers enterprises to confidently manage and govern data at scale. Actian data management and data intelligence solutions help streamline complex data environments and accelerate the delivery of AI-ready data. Designed to be flexible, Actian solutions integrate seamlessly and perform reliably across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments. Learn more about Actian, the data division of HCLSoftware, at actian.com.
1 ISG, ISG Buyers Guide for Data Products Classifies and Rates Software Providers, 14 Feb 2025.
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