Data Quality Remains the Top Data Integrity Challenge and Priority

The 2025 Outlook: Data Integrity Trends and Insights report is here! This year’s report is filled with actionable strategic insights from over 550 leading data and analytics professionals worldwide – and it’s going to be an essential resource as you plan your 2025 data strategy.

One major finding of this year’s report is that data quality is the top challenge impacting data integrity – cited as such by 64% of organizations – and it’s negatively affecting other initiatives meant to improve data integrity.

This has resulted in a lack of data trust, with 67% of respondents stating that they don’t completely trust their data used for decision-making. Fortunately, the survey shows that data quality is also the top priority for investment in 2024.

Let’s explore more of the report’s findings around data quality and trust.

Data Trust is on the Decline

Organizations have struggled with poor-quality data for years, resulting in a deeply-rooted lack of trust in the data being used for analytics and AI. This year, there’s been a significant drop in confidence, with 67% of respondents saying they don’t have complete trust in their organizations’ data for decision-making – up from 55% last year.

While data quality issues are nothing new, the impact of these problems is more impactful on business outcomes than ever before.

That’s due to the speed at which advanced analytics, business intelligence (BI), and artificial intelligence (AI) are progressing. After all, you can’t make sound data-driven decisions with poor-quality data, and when that data is fueling analytics and AI models, the negative impacts can be swift and severe.

Data Quality Challenges Impact Data Integrity and Overall Data Programs

Data quality remains the biggest data integrity challenge for organizations in this year’s survey and has become even more pervasive. This year, 64% of respondents say data quality is their top data integrity challenge, compared to 50% in 2023.

Other reported challenges to data integrity include data governance, which grew significantly from 27% of respondents in 2023 saying it was one of their biggest obstacles, to 51% in 2024 – an increase of 89%. Data privacy and security challenges remain high in the 2024 survey at 46%, compared to 41% last year. Data enrichment is fourth on the list of challenges at 30%.

Last year, we saw the ripple effect of poor data quality on the overall success of data programs. For example, poor data quality made it difficult to integrate data. This year, 50% of respondents again report that data quality is the number one issue impacting their organization’s data integration projects, indicating that data quality issues continue to ripple across all aspects of data integrity.

Various Challenges Prevent Organizations from Achieving High-Quality Data

Unfortunately, ratings of organizational data quality decreased this year by eleven percentage points. Last year, 66% of respondents rated their data quality as average or worse. This year, 77% say their data quality is average at best.

Respondents report that the number one factor keeping them from achieving high-quality data is inadequate tools for automating data quality processes (49%). Inconsistent data definitions and formats (45%) also continue to plague businesses. Unsurprisingly, data volume grew as a challenge, with 43% listing it as a top concern, compared to 35% in 2023.

Among all these challenges, it’s encouraging to see that data quality is the top data integrity priority reported in 2024, cited by 60% of respondents. Making strategic investments in data quality is essential in the journey to becoming a more data-driven organization.

Elevate Your 2025 Data Strategy

How does your data program and level of AI readiness compare to your peers’? Do you have the data integrity needed to achieve and exceed your business goals? Get all the insights and inspiration you need for a winning data strategy in the 2025 Outlook: Data Integrity Trends and Insights report.