Small AI Teams Are the Smart Money Move
Small AI teams are proving to be the smartest investment for small and midsize businesses. With just two to five skilled people, companies are achieving three to five times better ROI than large AI programs and reaching break-even in under a year. Modern AI tooling, from managed cloud platforms to pre-trained models, has leveled the playing field, making it possible for lean, focused teams to deliver transformative results without enterprise-scale budgets or risk.
Inside Snowflake Intelligence: Can the Enterprise Chatbot Live Where the Data Lives?
Enterprise AI is shifting from data movement to data proximity. Inside Snowflake Intelligence explores how Snowflake’s approach flips the traditional model, bringing intelligence to the data instead of exporting it. The result: stronger governance, tighter control, and a new paradigm for enterprise chatbots that live where the data lives.
The AI Hype Cycle in 2025: Navigating the Post - Generative AI Landscape
The AI boom is settling into reality. Generative AI’s hype has cooled, and the real winners are those investing in the foundation: data platforms, MLOps, governance, and AI engineering. The AI Hype Cycle in 2025 explores how enterprises can thrive in the post-GenAI landscape by focusing on durable value instead of viral demos.
Not a Demo: Making Agentic AI Actually Work
Everyone’s selling “agentic AI” right now, but most of what’s out there is just a chatbot in a lab coat. The difference between a flashy demo and an operational agent comes down to one thing: structure.
Unstructured data (emails, tickets, transcripts) is great for exploration. But if you want AI that runs at scale, feeds decisions back into your systems, and actually changes how the business operates, you need a structured substrate.
In this post, we break down how we used agentic AI to evaluate thousands of customer goals in a SaaS platform, scoring them against SMART criteria, routing weak ones back to CSMs, and closing the loop in our BI layer. No fairy dust, just data, structure, and agents that do the repetitive reasoning humans don’t have time for.
Transparency: the Sharpest Tool in Vendor Negotiations
Most vendor negotiations start with secrecy, holding back budgets, hiding roadmaps, and waiting for the discount dance. But the strongest deals don’t come from playing poker. They come from transparency. When you share your timelines, growth plans, and future needs, vendors can pull levers like time, volume, ramps, and marketplace credits to structure smarter, more equitable deals. Transparency isn’t just the best policy, it’s the strategy that wins.
Your Tech Stack Isn’t Broken. Your Approach Is.
Most SMBs fall into the same trap—buying a new tool and expecting it to fix broken processes. It never does. At Data Designs, we believe technology is a lever, not a lifeline. When deployed with purpose, it multiplies what’s already working, accelerates decision-making, and frees up your team to focus on growth. Our approach starts with clarity, builds small and connected systems, and automates the grind—turning your tech stack from a burden into a competitive advantage.
Ship Strategy, Not Decks: Fractional Chief Data Officers Scaling Growth in Lean Firms
How Fractional Chief Data Officers (CDO) Scale Growth in Resource-Constrained Firms — Budgets are tight, headcount is frozen, but growth targets remain. A fractional CDO acts as an accountable operator who connects data work directly to revenue, installs a lightweight operating system, and delivers measurable results fast. No agencies, no fluff — just the smallest system that works, a weekly decision-making cadence, and experiments that prove ROI in 90 days or less.