The Data Ecosystem is now The Data & AI Ecosystem

As of this week, this newsletter is called The Data & AI Ecosystem.

Have I given into the marketing trends of putting “AI” before everything? I mean, kind of...

But more than that, the direction of this newsletter and what is important in the data world has shifted.

And even newsletters have to evolve with the times. This is my announcement post on what is changing, why it is changing and where we are hopefully headed!

The most obvious change will be the name.

Beyond the marketing clickbait, AI is extremely prevalent, not going away any time soon, and worth continued exploration.

For three years, the argument in this newsletter has been that data isn’t a stack of tools, it’s an interconnected ecosystem, and that almost every failure I see in the field comes from treating the domains separately from one another. AI joins that interconnectedness, and probably makes it even harder to conceptualize how it all fits together.

I will write more about this on Sunday, but my original Data Ecosystem map/ infographic is outdated and needs to evolve. For example:

• Data governance now includes AI governance

• The semantic layer became the context layer

• Data ingestion is no longer simply ETL engineering through fixed pipeline builds, but is now MCP connectors, agentic builds, and modified schemas/ architectures to adhere to AI needs

• Most notably, the audience for data & AI has extended to non-data people, who now interact with data regularly through AI tools without touching a line of code

All of this just means that the name should evolve, just as the ecosystem is evolving (it’s basically Darwinism/ survival of the fittest and I want my newsletter to be fit for purpose in today’s world).

All of this comes at a time where I also need to evolve this newsletter to stand out against the mass amount of genericized AI slop that is being written. People have too much information and not enough time.

And in full transparency, this is tough for me. I put a lot of time into each article and hand-make the infographics, yet AI-generated text and graphics still win out.

But I will persevere. And I know that if I want you, as the reader, to engage with my content, I need to deliver high-quality outputs that you find practical and that help you on whatever journey you are on. Whether that be professionally helpful, driven by a desire to learn, or just for fun, I want to know why you read and how to better build this newsletter for you. So any content topics, suggestions, or critiques are very welcome, as this newsletter is for you and will never be a genericized AI blog.

Therefore the other reason for the rebrand is to stand out in this new world and recast the newsletter aligned to what you, as the reader, want to consume as I battle for your attention!

The content, the deep dives, and the overall approach to the newsletter will stay largely the same. I feel that now more than ever, we need authentic writing that encapsulates topics in a non-generic way.

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Three things I plan to add/ change:

1. More Practical Articles - I want to release more pieces about how I actually use AI day to day, and about the artifacts I’ve built for different data domains in my consulting work. Less “here is how to think about this,” more “here is the thing, here is how it was built, take it.” Some examples will be data governance artifacts, technical architecture overviews, and agentic workflows I’ve redesigned. Very open to suggestions from readers!

2. LinkedIn and Medium - I’m expanding this newsletter to the LinkedIn newsletters platform and Medium as well, basically to boost the reach I can get out there. Honestly, this has no impact on you (unless you prefer those sites), but I thought I’d mention it. The Sunday piece will run in all three places. Any mid-week or practical sharing posts will stay here on Substack

3. Paid Subscriptions - Finally, I’m turning on paid subscriptions. The primary reason I’m doing this is to access all the features that Substack has for paid newsletters that they don’t have for completely free newsletters (I also hate their subscription structure, hint hint Substack). My goal is to still explain The Data & AI Ecosystem to all people whether they have money to pitch or not. With that being said, feel free to pledge support or contribute if you feel my content is worth it, I appreciate everything that comes my way. And there may be some perks coming through as well (more on this below)

Nothing will move behind a paywall today, and the Sunday deep dive won’t either. If anything changes/ updates, you will hear about it!

Oh, and one thing I also want to mention is paid partnerships/sponsorships. As you might have read, I’ve done a few articles with some very kind data companies. Each time I do this, I very strictly vet the company and their product to make sure it aligns with a topic in the data ecosystem I want to write about. I also make sure that these articles demonstrate a genuine need in the data and AI space.

If you are able to give these articles some love or share them if you think any of these products might be helpful for you or someone you know, that would be awesome (and let me know too). These kinds of partnerships help make the content free and keep me writing on a weekly basis.

So I do want to add legitimate perks to the paid plan; my only barrier right now is time. With that being said, here is what I’m thinking:

• Paywalled articles, either from the archive or new ones

• Sessions where you can ask me anything

• Shared artifacts, templates, etc.

• An interactive site or repository where you can get information, query definitions across the data & AI ecosystem, and even potentially ask questions related to the content with a gen AI response engine (ambitious but I think this would be super cool and useful)

These are future plans and I’ll keep you posted on when they get added into the paid subscription. I’m also open to any suggestions you might have!

Also, while super ambitious, I would love to make that last one a reality. The original pitch for this newsletter, back in Issue #1, was that it would be the CliffsNotes for the entire data industry. The Substack format isn’t the most conducive for that, so would love to build something that acts as a real repository of all I’ve written over the years!

Sometimes I feel like I’m behind in AI.

I honestly don’t have a team of agents doing my work and automating my life. I haven’t figured out how to build my own open-source harness yet, and a lot of my AI-built tools are going stale.

But what I can say for certainty is that we are literally just starting in this AI journey, and there’s so much to write about. That being said, we all know that the data ecosystem underpins the world of AI, so how those two things come together becomes more important by the week.

So as I close this off, I want to say THANK YOU for reading, especially if you’ve been here since the early issues and consumed at least some of the 70+ articles I’ve written. Hopefully you’ve gained something from my work and keen to keep that value going for you!

And again if there’s something you want covered, a build you may want to offer or something I’ve got wrong, reply to this email, message me direct in Substack or LinkedIn or leave a comment. I’m very responsive :)

Thanks for the read! Comment below and share the newsletter if you think it’s relevant! Feel free to also follow me on Substack, LinkedIn, and Medium, or reach out if you are looking for some top-notch freelance consulting input! See you amazing folks next week!

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