After an initial phase of sweeping experimentation and wild speculation, AI’s role in the current data space is finally crystallizing around specific, practical applications that drive ROI. Increasingly, innovators are no longer regarding AI as a “toy” to be played with but a tool that can reliably increase efficiency, insight, and security, ushering in a new era for automation in the modern data space.
Hakkoda’s State of Data 2025 report found four high-impact AI use cases that innovative organizations are leveraging across industries: governance and compliance, data cleaning and preprocessing, workflow automation, and real-time fraud detection. The common element among these applications is clear, with AI stepping in wherever manual processes are most inefficient, thereby empowering team members to do the work that only human beings can do.
In this article, we will discuss why these four applications are uniquely positioned to drive real-world impactful as well as what they bring to organizations’ bottom lines, drawing on exclusive data from Hakkoda’s State of Data report 2025.

1. AI Oversees Governance and Compliance with Unparalleled Efficiency
Complex legal regulations can slow down operations for data-driven organizations, especially in tightly regulated fields like financial services and healthcare. By entrusting governance and compliance functions to AI, organizations can protect the time and attention of their internal data teams while cutting down on potentially costly manual errors, implementing automated governance and compliance functions that can quickly evolve in response to the regulatory landscape.
96% of the most innovative organizations are already using AI for governance and compliance in 2025. Meanwhile, many of their competitors are still beholden to suboptimal processes dependent on manual oversight. Expect to see this application of AI to continue to spread as organizations look to streamline their regulatory processes, both to ensure efficiency and peace of mind.
2. Data Cleaning and Preprocessing Ensures Data Quality
Many organizations are drowning in an excess of data that’s all but impossible to effectively organize and use. That’s why innovative organizations are leveraging AI to do data cleaning and preprocessing. AI can be trained to sift through data “noise” and deliver clear and consistent insights with an efficiency that manual processing simply cannot match. This in turn provides organizational decision makers with the best, most up-to-date data possible.
Only 6% of innovative organizations have yet to apply AI to data cleaning and preprocessing, compared to 72% of less data-mature organizations. That gap is set to narrow in 2025 as more and more organizations strive to use AI to ensure their working with quality data.

3. Workflow Automation Leverages AI to Empower Team Members
There are, of course, important AI applications that work in tandem with manual processes, creating a powerful synergy that drives productivity and insight. Integrating AI into an organization’s workflow through LLMs, automated decision-making, and real-time data insights ensures that team members can work faster, smarter, and easier.
94% of top performing organizations were projected to have integrated AI into their workflow by the end of 2024, while 21% of the least innovative companies expected to still be working towards integration in 2025 and beyond. Given these trends, workflow automation is poised to be a difference-maker, setting apart innovators from their competition in the coming year.

4. AI Helps Organizations Contain Security Breaches with Real-Time Fraud Detection
Security breaches cost organizations time, money, and credibility, and a host of well-publicized fraud issues hurt many major companies in 2024. In the modern data space, fraud detection simply cannot be entrusted to manual processes any longer, as organizations have to be extremely quick to address security threats to protect their bottom line. This is why innovators are turning to AI to provide real-time fraud detection. The sheer speed with which AI can search for data irregularities ensures that organizations will know immediately if their data has been compromised, giving their data teams the best possible chance to contain breaches. Soon the data space will have advanced to the point that AI fraud detection is no longer a luxury but a necessity for competitive organizations.
Hakkōda Helps Organizations Build AI Functions that Make a Difference
These four AI use cases make automation’s role in the modern data space clear. Where manual oversight is inefficient and ill-suited to the task at hand, AI can optimize processes to ensure compliance, provide quality data, enhance security, and empower team members to do the work that only they can do.
Adopting this approach to AI will distinguish innovative organizations from those who still regard AI as a “toy” or a curiosity in 2025, and those who have been quickest to adapt are already reaping rewards.
Hakkoda’s data experts are experienced in building the AI functions that power the modern data stack and drive ROI. If you’re ready to tap into the true potential of AI, let’s talk today about how Hakkoda can help you harness the true power of automation.