Alation unveils agentic AI suite for governing critical data
Alation introduced CDE Manager, an agentic AI set of capabilities for governing data tied to reporting, risk, and regulatory compliance. The suite is in beta now and expected to be generally available before the end of 2025. Pricing is usage-based and CDE Manager will be part of Alation's data catalog.
Why it matters for operations
Most teams are drowning in data while compliance demands keep shifting. High-quality, trusted data rarely moves fast enough from policy to production because risk, compliance, and data teams work in silos. Critical Data Elements (CDEs) create focus by prioritizing the data that drives core processes.
CDE Manager applies agents to speed up that work: translating policy into measurable standards, mapping CDEs across systems, and monitoring compliance in near real time. The aim is fewer stalled projects and quicker, auditable outcomes.
What CDE Manager does
- Policy translation: Purpose-built agents interpret business policies and risk controls, set measurable standards, and generate executable rules (Policy-as-Code) to govern CDEs.
- Semantic mapping: Agents connect CDEs to data assets across the catalog, lineage, and quality layers so each element is clearly contextualized and governed.
- Continuous compliance: Automatic monitoring of quality and policy adherence, with issues surfaced as they occur.
- Unified view: An audit-ready view that links policies, terms, lineage, and controls for every CDE.
- Integration: Works with Alation's data quality and curation capabilities to keep standards, checks, and ownership aligned.
Analyst perspective
"Alation CDE Manager [is] significant because it addresses the disconnect between business policy intent and technical implementation," said Stephen Catanzano, analyst at Omdia. "By using AI agents to automatically translate business policies into measurable data standards and … monitor compliance, it enables organizations to govern CDEs without getting overwhelmed by the complexity that typically stalls governance initiatives."
He added, "The feature set seems logically cohesive for governing CDEs at scale. The Policy-as-Code capability that translates business requirements into executable rules, combined with semantic mapping … and continuous compliance monitoring, creates a comprehensive governance loop."
On differentiation: "The specific focus on CDE governance with declarative AI agents appears differentiated … more targeted than the broader governance automation offered by competitors."
Context and positioning
Alation's metadata platform competes with specialists like Collibra and Informatica and with large providers such as AWS and IBM. The focus on CDEs gives Alation a clear, narrow problem to solve: getting critical data into production, certified and audit-ready, with less manual effort.
Why teams stall - and how agents help
Establishing and governing CDEs is tedious work: definitions, lineage, ownership, quality metrics, and controls. Done manually, it's slow and error-prone. GT Volpe, senior director of product management at Alation, said the product was built from customers' success patterns to remove the bottleneck.
"CDE Manager eliminates one of the biggest bottlenecks in data governance - the manual effort required to define, certify and maintain critical data," Volpe said.
How to put this to work in 30-60 days
- Start narrow: Pick one process with clear regulatory exposure (e.g., a Basel/BCBS 239 reporting package or GDPR data subject reporting). Define 10-20 CDEs that drive the outputs.
- Codify policy intent: Map regulatory text to business rules and acceptable thresholds. Agents translate those into standards and executable checks. Consider references like BCBS 239 or the EU's GDPR article-by-article requirements.
- Connect the stack: Ensure catalog, lineage, and data quality systems are integrated so semantic mapping can link each CDE to sources, transformations, and controls.
- Define ownership and triage: Assign a business owner and a technical steward per CDE. Route issues to the right team with SLAs.
- Automate checks: Turn on continuous monitoring for quality and policy compliance. Use policy-as-code rules to block bad data from reaching reports.
- Prove value fast: Target one audit-ready report delivered with fewer manual touchpoints. Document cycle time and issue reduction.
What to measure
- Time to define and certify a CDE (baseline vs. after agents)
- % of CDEs with clear ownership and lineage coverage
- % of policy checks automated vs. manual
- Policy-to-executable-rule cycle time
- Production incident rate tied to CDEs and mean time to resolve
- Audit findings linked to data quality or lineage gaps
Road ahead
Alation has emphasized agentic AI throughout 2025, including agents for documentation and quality rules and an Agent Builder for creating structured, task-specific agents. Volpe said the company will expand declarative governance so organizations can define outcomes and have agents operationalize them automatically, with deeper integrations across structured data and more automation for curation and quality.
Catanzano noted that expanding agents to address complex regulatory frameworks and adding predictive governance that flags risk before it hits production could boost adoption, especially in highly regulated sectors.
Procurement notes
- Status: Beta now; expected GA before the end of 2025.
- Pricing: Usage-based; delivered as part of the Alation data catalog.
- Fit: Teams focused on reporting, risk, and compliance that need faster, auditable delivery of critical data with fewer manual steps.
Upskill your team
If you're building data governance and AI-agent skills across operations, explore role-based options here: AI courses by job.
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