Soundappan Soundarraj

The AI era is redefining enterprise data architecture. While organisations have spent years building platforms to integrate and analyse data, AI introduces a new challenge: creating trusted context. AI agents, copilots, and large language models do not simply need access to enterprise data—they need business meaning, relationships, lineage, ownership, quality, and governance to reason with confidence. This session introduces the concept of Engineering Enterprise Context, demonstrating how data architecture and unified governance must evolve into a single operating model. Modern architecture provides the structure by connecting data products and modelling business relationships, while unified governance enriches those assets with metadata, lineage, ownership, quality, security, and policy. Together, they create an Enterprise Context Layer that enables AI to understand information rather than simply retrieve it. Drawing on real-world experience from the financial services industry, this session explores how organisations can redesign their data estates to become AI-ready. Attendees will discover how governance moves beyond compliance to become a strategic enabler of trusted AI, providing the context required for explainable decisions, reduced hallucinations, and responsible AI.