Informatica, a leading enterprise data management vendor, has announced a significant update to its Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) with a range of new AI-powered features. The enhancements aim to improve data integration, governance, and analytics capabilities, making it easier for organizations to prepare their data for AI and analytics initiatives.

IDMC is a cloud-based platform that sits on top of enterprise databases, ingesting and cataloging data from various sources while applying data governance rules. The platform includes tools for extract, transform, load (ETL), data observability, and master data management. Informatica's AI-powered recommendation tool, Claire, has been a key component of IDMC, and the company has continued to evolve it with the introduction of Claire GPT chat interface and Claire Copilot automation capabilities.

This week, Informatica showcased future Claire Copilot features, including those still in preview, such as Claire Copilot for Data Integration and for iPaaS. The data integration copilot will enable users to generate data pipelines using natural language, receive context-aware execution recommendations, and automate documentation, enhancing the efficiency of data ingestion, replication, and integration. The Copilot for iPaaS preview will allow non-technical users to set up complex multi-step, app-to-app integration processes, automate object mappings, and produce business and technical summaries through the assistant's NLP-based interface.

Other new features, already generally available, include a set of generative AI recipes for application integration. These prebuilt integration process templates are designed to accelerate the development of generative AI-driven applications and simplify their deployment across multiple platforms, including Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Databricks Mosaic AI, Google Cloud Vertex AI, Gemini, and Salesforce.

Informatica is also integrating Claire GPT with its MDM SaaS module, enabling NLP-based search and metadata exploration of business entities and associated attributes within master Claire-generated glossary descriptions. This update, available later in April, will reduce manual effort by automatically generating consistent and comprehensive glossary descriptions and aliases, improving data understanding across teams.

According to Hyoun Park, chief analyst at Amalgam Insights, the new updates will help enterprises prepare data for AI use cases with the help of AI. "Informatica has targeted its AI efforts in the core audience of data management professionals who have to categorize, augment, and integrate data in a repeatable fashion," Park said. Amalgam Insights estimates that nearly 40% of enterprise data is not prepared for analytic and AI training efforts due to low quality, and the ability to accelerate these efforts will make a significant difference in determining whether enterprises can start with value-driving AI initiatives this year or wait until next year.

Alexander Wurm, principal analyst at Nucleus Research, noted that the updates, especially the ability to understand natural language, align with a wider trend of democratizing data access, empowering more employees to interact with data without needing deep technical expertise. "By leveraging natural language processing, these tools simplify complex data integration tasks, enabling faster and more efficient workflows," Wurm said.

Informatica's strength lies in providing a breadth of data services under one roof for clients, including low-code integration, unstructured data support, master data support, and integration services. The company has also added a generative AI-powered natural language interface for the Data Marketplace module inside IDMC, allowing users to discover data more easily.

As enterprises increasingly adopt AI and analytics initiatives, the need for efficient data management and integration solutions has become more pressing. Informatica's latest updates to its IDMC suite are poised to help organizations overcome data preparation challenges and unlock new insights with the help of AI.