Redgate Report: As Organizations Pour Millions into AI Initiatives, 77% Still Aren’t Utilizing Formal Control and Data Governance Processes

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, database software company Redgate Software published its 2026 State of the Database Landscape Report: AI Edition, revealing that while the enterprise sector is adapting to tech advancements at breakneck speed, only 23% of firms are utilizing formal data governance or quality frameworks to manage these fast-scaling environments. This critical control gap is concerning, as the use of AI for database management has nearly tripled year-on-year since 2025.

The report also uncovers a conflict between innovation and control: 58% of surveyed organizations explicitly accept higher data security risks in exchange for efficiency gains. This risk is compounded by infrastructure complexity, with 36% of enterprises managing four or more database platforms across fragmented estates.

"AI didn't create fragile operational foundations, but it has exposed and amplified organizational pitfalls at a speed and scale that is impossible to ignore," said Kellyn Gorman, Engineer and Advocate at Redgate. "The hard truth is that AI without strong foundations doesn't just fail slower, it fails faster, and in ways much harder to debug, fix and explain to the business. The solution isn’t to slow down delivery, but to stop pretending the gaps aren't there while we accelerate toward them."

Based on insights from 2,150 global IT professionals, the report identifies additional critical friction points across the modern data lifecycle:

• 44% of organizations invested more than $100,000 in database AI over the past year; meanwhile, nearly a quarter of large enterprises invested over $1M.
• While 99% of respondents report operational benefits from AI—led by task automation (63%) and performance optimization (60%)—core controls lag behind.
• Only 23% of firms today are utilizing formal data governance or quality frameworks to manage fast-scaling environments.
• 39% of organizations still rely on manual approaches to test and deploy database changes.

As Gartner predicts that 60% of AI projects lacking AI-ready data will be abandoned by the end of 2026, enterprise leaders must transition away from fragmented, manual database configurations and embed automated governance directly into their technology stacks.

To read Redgate’s report on AI in database management trends: https://rd.gt/49PWaDt

About Redgate

Redgate puts businesses in control of their databases, supporting automation with confidence, enabling secure scaling and helping people to realize value and unlock growth through AI. Redgate's portfolio of solutions helps organizations reliably solve the complex challenges of database management across the Database DevOps lifecycle. We make life easier for IT leaders, development and operations teams, increasing efficiency, reducing errors, and protecting business-critical data.

More than 200,000 data professionals across the globe, including 92% of the Fortune 100, rely on Redgate's solutions to enable automation, resilience and efficiency throughout the database lifecycle, ensuring they get the most value out of their databases.