GDPR panic may spur data and AI innovation

If AI innovation runs on data, the new European Union's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) seem poised to freeze AI advancement. The regulations prescribe a utopian data future where consumers can refuse companies access to their personally identifiable information (PII). Although the enforcement deadline has passed, the technical infrastructure and manpower needed to meet these requirements still do not exist in most companies today. Coincidentally, the barriers to GDPR compliance are also bottlenecks of widespread AI adoption. Despite the hype, enterprise AI is still nascent: Companies may own petabytes of data that can be used for AI, but fully digitizing that data, knowing what the data tables actually contain and understanding who, where and how to access that data remains a herculean coordination effort for even the most empowered internal champion.