By Gertrude G. Van Horn, SVP & CIO, Cien.ai

“An intelligent system built on bad data is just a faster, more confident mistake-maker.”

– Spend Matters, August 2025

The Problem: Beautiful Dashboards, Rotten Foundations

According to Gartner, up to 60% of AI projects will fail by 2026. Not due to algorithmic flaws or lack of ambition, but because they’re built on bad data. Most GTM analytics engines gloss over this reality. They generate impressive reports — but under the hood, the data is fragmented, inconsistent, stale, and ultimately untrustworthy.

This disconnect defines the “AI Execution Gap”: the chasm between AI ambition and execution, where data quality is assumed but never guaranteed.

When poor data leads to failed AI initiatives, it’s not just the tech team that takes a hit. Executives who sponsor these projects lose internal credibility and political capital, and the organization becomes more resistant to future innovation. Confidence in dashboards collapses — and worse, teams start second-guessing each other, not just the data.

The Solution: AI That Starts With the Data

It’s tempting to throw more AI at the problem. But without a strong foundation, you’re just scaling dysfunction.

Cien’s GTM Suite was built to close this gap. We give you the opportunity to leverage the data you have – only better – so you can end your year stronger. At the heart of it is Automatic Data Enhancement (ADE) — a breakthrough capability that:

• Cleans and standardizes CRM data at scale using deep learning and advanced normalization
• Enriches key fields with third-party corpographic intelligence
• Flags and fixes stale, inconsistent, or incomplete records — automatically
• Outputs a trusted, AI-ready dataset for both internal analytics and external reuse

Unlike traditional cleanup projects that rely on consultants and months of manual effort, Cien completes the ADE process in just 2–3 days. And we don’t just fix the data and keep it locked inside our system (or yours) — we return the enhanced dataset to our clients so they can use it to power their own analytics, models, and decisions.

What Does Success Look Like?

With Cien’s GTM Suite, success isn’t just clean dashboards and compelling insights — it’s trustworthy data, sustainable AI, and GTM systems you can build on.

• AI projects don’t stall – or fail – in the pilot phase
• Insights are based on facts, not hunches and  assumptions
• Actions and insights are available in days not months 
• Teams can build custom models or reporting engines with confidence
• GTM strategy becomes truly data-driven — not just dashboard-deep

Clients using ADE have seen an immediate  60–85% reduction in duplicate and inconsistent GTM records — with enhanced records available to power everything from RevOps strategy to custom enterprise AI.

As Spend Matters put it:

“An intelligent system built on bad data is just a faster, more confident mistake-maker.”
In other words: with bad data, you just make bad decisions faster. Sophisticated  analytics running on broken data? That’s just expensive guesswork.

Let’s stop building skyscrapers on quicksand. Let’s fix the foundation.
End your year strong using your own data – only better.
At Cien.ai, we’ll show you how.

About the Cien.ai Data Exec Series

This article is part of our Data Exec Series, inspired by our work with B2B leaders, growth consultants, and PE operating partners. These pieces focus on how to become a data-driven executive ready for the AI revolution. If you’re interested in RevOps analytics and GTM performance strategy, be sure to also check out our Growth Essentials and Practical RevOps Analytics series.