John O’Connell was featured in TechFinitive’s CIO Playbook 2026, discussing what tech leaders really think about enterprise AI adoption. John stresses that solving data quality and governance challenges is essential to scaling AI effectively. As firms implement AI agents, many discover that bad data simply delivers wrong answers faster.

John says that firms must develop better vendor management practices to understand where their data resides, AI Acceptable Use Policies that clearly outline acceptable and unacceptable use cases and tools, and training programs that teach staff to use AI safely and avoid hallucinations and bias in AI results.