If Your Data Could Talk: 6 MDM Resolutions for 2026

Happy New Year! It’s your data here. My 2026 goal? To be accurate, trustworthy, and truly useful. As organizations look ahead to the biggest data management trends for 2026, here are my resolutions to help me keep that promise—and what you need to do so I can achieve my goals.

Resolution #1: I’m determined to remain clean and consistent in real time

I know you rely on me to deliver clear, trustworthy insights that everyone across the organization can use to make better decisions. But I know I can be pretty messy and full of duplicate, incomplete, and conflicting records. And that messiness shows up everywhere you rely on me. This year, I want to remain clean and consistent all the time and whenever you need me. But I need your help to do so. 

To allow me to deliver clear, trustworthy insights in 2026, I need you to address data cleansing issues while I’m still in motion—not after I’ve already polluted downstream systems (oops). That means investing in an AI-native master data management (MDM) solution that delivers real-time connectivity. That way, you can catch any incomplete or duplicate records in me before they infiltrate your operational systems and ensure I am mastered and remain accurate and up-to-date at any moment in time. 

Resolution #2: I vow to stop living in silos

Let’s be real: I reside in many systems across your organization. This is a challenge because when I’m scattered across multiple, disconnected systems, I can’t show you complete and accurate insights. For example, in one system I might look accurate, while in another I’m outdated or duplicated. And these inconsistencies leave you questioning which version of me to trust. As a result, I create confusion, rework, and blind spots that cloud decisions and weaken outcomes.

This year, I vow to stop living in silos. But I can’t do it on my own. To free me from the confines of siloed systems, you need to develop an enterprise-wide MDM strategy that not only brings structure to the ownership and processes needed to manage me, but also embraces AI-native MDM. 

By combining the efficiency and scalability of sophisticated AI/ML models and AI agents with the intuition and expertise of human oversight, AI-native MDM breaks down data silos and simplifies your management of me so I can deliver golden records and accurate insights that lead to better decision-making and stronger business performance. 

Resolution #3: I vow to make connections across multiple domains

Another challenge with living in multiple, disparate silos is that I obscure the connections between multiple data domains. And I know that’s frustrating for you. After all, if you don’t know whether or not a customer is also a supplier or multiple people are part of the same household, you can’t effectively answer complex questions and deliver exceptional experiences that move your business forward. 

To follow through on this resolution, I can’t remain trapped in siloed systems, hoping that someone, somewhere will help me make connections across domains. Instead, I need to be visible via an enterprise knowledge graph. 

An enterprise knowledge graph is a connected, contextualized view that highlights the relationships among and between key business entities. And it’s what enables me to reveal important relationships such as contacts who are also employees of a given company; alumni who are also parents of a current, former, or prospective student at a university; or healthcare providers who are part of a practice that is affiliated with a certain healthcare system.

By embracing Tamr’s AI-native MDM, you’ll equip me with capabilities that allow me to make connections across multiple domains and present you with a holistic view of all your key business entities so you can make better, more informed sales, marketing or customer experience decisions.  

Resolution #4: I commit to embrace data from third-party sources

When your organization relies solely on internal data, I can only tell you part of the story. My records lack important details about your key business entities, and that limits the insights you can draw from me. Even worse, when you don’t enrich me with external sources, I’m more likely to be outdated or incomplete, and that erodes trust with your end users. 

In 2026, I want to be enriched with third-party sources. And I’m counting on you to support me. With an AI-native MDM solution like Tamr and its built-in integrations with leading data providers, I can tap into trustworthy third-party sources and fill the gaps in my records without the need for coding or custom builds. And that, in turn, means I can deliver richer, more complete golden records to you. Even better, because Tamr enables always-on data enrichment pipelines, you can easily add new sources and feel confident that my records will always be up-to-date and complete. 

Resolution #5: I promise to give your AI agents accurate, trustworthy data

This year, I’m making it my mission to be the kind of data AI agents love to work with—clean, consistent, and reliable. No more messy duplicates. No more blank fields. And no more inconsistent values that leave AI agents scratching their virtual heads. I plan to deliver the contextual insights AI agents need to make confident data curation decisions. 

But here’s where I need your help. Staying up-to-date is hard work. And technology alone is not enough. Instead, I need you to follow the MDM Journey. That’s the secret to helping me deliver the data AI agents can rely on to produce trustworthy, hallucination-free output. 

The MDM Journey starts with a thorough and honest evaluation of my current state, including my strengths, weaknesses, and opportunity areas. With these insights in hand, you can prioritize the data sets and sources within me that require immediate attention. Next, you’ll want to improve my quality by aligning me to a schema, eliminating duplicates, fixing bad values, and enriching me with third-party sources so I can deliver the golden records AI agents need. You’ll also want to ask key business stakeholders to review me and provide feedback on my quality.

Finally, I’ll be ready for you to connect me to key business systems for use in analytics, operations, and AI initiatives. And while this may sound like hard work, it becomes exponentially easier when you use an AI-native MDM solution like Tamr to support it. 

Resolution #6: I resolve to remain agile as your business evolves

I know I can be rigid, forcing teams to work around my outdated values and fixed structures. And when I behave like this, users become frustrated. They don’t trust my insights and avoid basing decisions on me—and that’s bad for business. 

This year, I resolve to change my ways and become the flexible, scalable, and actionable data you need to propel the business forward. But once again, I’m counting on you to support me. With Tamr’s AI-native MDM, I can be the agile data your business needs. 

Help Me Turn My Resolutions Into Results

Legacy, rules-based MDM solutions are so 2025. To help me make my 2026 resolutions stick, I encourage you to adopt AI-native MDM. Tamr uses AI in MDM in unique and proven ways to efficiently and scalably solve the persistent challenges and shortcomings of traditional MDM. And an AI-centric approach isn’t new to Tamr. For over 15 years, the company has been developing AI technology and delivering innovations that data like me rely on to support the needs of global organizations.

Unlike traditional MDM solution providers like Reltio and Informatica, Tamr delivers efficiency, accuracy, intelligence, and scalability that’s beyond compare. Want to know more? Check out this infographic that provides more detail on how AI-native MDM compares to rules-based MDM. 

This is the year I work harder for you. Let’s make 2026 one to remember.