I’m excited to announce the release of The Forrester Wave™: Data Management For Analytics Platforms, Q2 2025. This edition evaluated the 11 most significant data management and analytics (DMA) platform vendors, providing a comprehensive view of a market undergoing rapid transformation. Over the past decade, we’ve consistently published the DMA Wave, tracking the evolution of the space and offering guidance to enterprises navigating their data strategy, but this year’s evaluation reflects a notable shift. Historically, most DMA solutions were optimized for structured data and near-real-time processing and often tied to a single cloud with limited data sources. Today, the demands on DMA platforms are much broader and more complex.
What’s Going On With The DMA Platforms Market?
With the rise of multicloud and hybrid-cloud data strategies, diverse data types, and increasing expectations for improved scale and automation, we tailored our criteria to reflect these emerging requirements. This year’s Wave captures how vendors are adapting with new and advanced capabilities fueled by advanced automation, integrated data intelligence, and AI-driven data management. Generative AI is emerging as a transformative force, enhancing both automation and intelligence within DMA. As a result, selecting the right DMA platform provider to support immediate and long-term data strategies has become increasingly complex.
There are two important takeaways from the research:
Generative AI is automating DMA functions. The modern DMA platform is automating complex tasks such as data ingestion, cleansing, transformation, integration, governance, and security. Natural language allows users to interact with data, generate insights, and manage platforms without deep technical expertise. This significantly reduces the need for specialized engineers and streamlines operations. GenAI also enhances DMA with advanced features such as anomaly detection and support for vector-based search. Leading vendors leverage agentic AI and natural language capabilities to deliver more intelligent and integrated data management.
Built-in data intelligence is elevating DMA to a new level. Built-in data intelligence is streamlining data semantic-related tasks, dramatically improving efficiency and unlocking deeper insights. These capabilities can automatically detect patterns, relationships, and trends within datasets that normally take significant time and effort to uncover. Leading vendors deliver comprehensive, automated intelligence that enables rich data contextualization, accelerating a wide range of use cases. This empowers organizations to act proactively — whether predicting customer behavior, optimizing operations, or mitigating risks such as fraud.
New Wave Criteria Reflect Evolving DMA Requirements
With generative AI and data intelligence becoming foundational to modern DMA platforms, vendors increasingly embed these capabilities — although vendor offerings range from basic to highly advanced, integrated solutions. The key differentiator is not simply the presence of genAI but how deeply and effectively it is integrated. We evaluated genAI as a standalone criteria and as an embedded capability across core functions such as data ingestion, transformation, governance, security, and integration to capture this evolution. We also emphasized natural language for data access and end-to-end platform management through conversational interaction. This holistic approach ensures that our evaluation reflects the rising demand for intelligent, intuitive, and highly automated data management solutions.
If your organization still relies on traditional data management tools for analytical workloads, now is the time to shift to a modern DMA platform. Modern platforms powered by genAI, advanced automation, and intelligence enable the real-time delivery of consistent and trusted data. This transformation accelerates high-impact use cases, fuels innovation and growth, and rapidly democratizes data access across teams. Upgrading your DMA platform isn’t just a technology upgrade; it’s a strategic move toward becoming a data-driven, AI-enabled organization. Don’t wait — embrace genAI-powered DMA platforms to stay ahead of the curve.
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