IDC & Iron Mountain Roundtable
Data First: Why Agentic AI Success Starts With Your Data
Hosted By
Saudi organizations are moving fast on agentic AI. IDC forecasts that total AI buyer spending in the Kingdom will grow from $2.72 billion in 2025 to $7.83 billion in 2029, a 30.3% CAGR. Yet only half of Saudi organizations consider themselves ready to make the most of that investment, and a quarter cite a non-centralized data foundation as one of their biggest barriers.
According to IDC, companies that don’t prioritize high-quality, AI-ready data will experience a 15% loss in productivity by 2027 as they try to scale generative and agentic AI. The spending is real. The readiness to use it well is not, at least not yet.
IDC and Iron Mountain bring Saudi CIOs together for a roundtable in Riyadh to explore what it takes to make enterprise data agent-ready: clean, classified, and accessible enough for an AI agent to act on with confidence.
The conversation will center on where CIOs should draw the line between data that’s ready for autonomous action and data that still needs work – including how to identify hidden or disconnected data that may not yet be visible to the organization or integrated into its systems -and how that decision should shape the next two years of investment.
Key Discussion Areas
Find the dark data hiding in your organization
How leading CIOs are locating unstructured and disconnected data that sits outside core systems. Why this hidden data is often the biggest blind spot in an AI-ready data strategy.
The classification bottleneck
How CIOs are deciding which data sets can be trusted to an AI agent today, and which ones still need classification and cleanup.
Build the case for data readiness as a productivity issue
IDC forecasts a 15% productivity loss by 2027 for organizations that don’t prioritize AI-ready data. How leaders are using this risk to secure internal buy-in for data foundation work.
Manage compliance risk as data opens up to agents
How CIOs are extending classification and retention policy to cover data that agents can now act on.
Agenda
IDC & Iron Mountain Roundtable
Sun, Sep 27
Registration & Networking
IDC Keynote: Preparing for the Agent Economy: Acceleration, Orchestration and Resiliency
We have moved past the “Great Implementation.” As we enter 2026, the global enterprise has reached a critical inflection point where the sheer volume of data, the complexity of multi-cloud ecosystems, and the velocity of agentic AI have outpaced traditional human management. The mandate for the IT executives has fundamentally shifted: it is no longer about managing technology, but about architecting autonomy.
Eren Eser
Associate Research Director, Türkiye, IDC
From Dark Data To An Agent-Ready Foundation
Enterprises are sitting on vast stores of dark, unclassified data that AI agents can’t yet trust or use. This keynote shows how to turn that hidden liability into a governed, agent-ready foundation- covering the classification, metadata, and lifecycle practices needed to get there, drawn from Iron Mountain’s experience managing information at scale.
Mihails Balonuskovs
Regional Digital Solution Architect (MENAT), Iron Mountain
Open Discussion: Closing the Gap Between AI Ambition and AI-Ready Data
AI ambition is outpacing the data foundations needed to support it. This panel unpacks why so many AI initiatives stall at the data layer – fragmented ownership, weak governance, poor quality – and debates what “AI-ready” really means, with practical steps for closing the gap.
Eren Eser
Associate Research Director, Türkiye, IDC
Mihails Balonuskovs
Regional Digital Solution Architect (MENAT), Iron Mountain
Summary & Closing Remarks
Dinner & Networking
Speakers
Eren Eser
Associate Research Director, Türkiye
IDC
Read bio
Eren Eser
Eren is a seasoned analyst with 20+ years of experience in the ICT sector. He directs all IDC ICT research and consulting engagements in Türkiye, and all sustainability research and consulting projects across the Middle East, Türkiye, and Africa (META).
Based in Istanbul, Eren has been involved in projects ranging from market forecasts to strategic consulting engagements on market entry, competitive analysis, go-to-market strategies, technology marketing, and end-user studies. Eren’s vast experience in the IT services, cloud, software, and telecommunications domains helps IDC clients understand the impact of technology-enabled, sustainable transformation processes in the context of sustainable digital business strategies, operations, products, and services. In addition to his research and consulting activities, Eren is a speaker at industry events.
Prior to joining IDC in 2017, Eren spent more than a decade in IT industry roles spanning portfolio management, channel and business development, pricing, and software development at companies including Turk Telekom and TAI.
Eren earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering and an MBA focused on technology road mapping for strategy and innovation, both from Middle East Technical University. He received a master of science in information systems, with a thesis on modeling mobile telecommunications services, from Middle East Technical University. During his academic endeavors, he studied for one semester at the University of Copenhagen, and for one semester at Harvard University. He is pursuing a marketing PhD focused on sustainability.
Event Sessions
One Day Event 7:40 pm
Open Discussion: Closing the Gap Between AI Ambition and AI-Ready Data
AI ambition is outpacing the data foundations needed to support it. This panel unpacks why so many AI initiatives stall at the data layer – fragmented ownership, weak governance, poor quality – and debates what “AI-ready” really means, with practical steps for closing the gap.
One Day Event 7:00 pm
IDC Keynote: Preparing for the Agent Economy: Acceleration, Orchestration and Resiliency
We have moved past the “Great Implementation.” As we enter 2026, the global enterprise has reached a critical inflection point where the sheer volume of data, the complexity of multi-cloud ecosystems, and the velocity of agentic AI have outpaced traditional human management. The mandate for the IT executives has fundamentally shifted: it is no longer about managing technology, but about architecting autonomy.
Mihails Balonuskovs
Regional Digital Solution Architect (MENAT)
Iron Mountain
Read bio
Mihails Balonuskovs
As the Regional Digital Solution Architect at Iron Mountain, Mihails Balonuskovs brings nearly a decade of experience designing automation and AI solutions across the Middle East. Specializing in Digital Content Management, Intelligent Document Processing, and AI Automation, Mihails Balonuskovs has spearheaded many high-stakes digital transformation projects for major government entities and private organizations across the region. By architecting digital solutions that automated complex workflows, from country import audits to customer-facing services, these projects successfully saved thousands of hours in manual document validation and optimized processes for a more educated human decision-making.
Mihails Balonuskovs is driven by an unwavering commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements, constantly exploring how innovation can improve business decision-making and enhance daily operations. With a deep focus on automation over the last five years, he has successfully leveraged these technologies to drive continuous innovation for organizations across the region.
Event Sessions
One Day Event 7:40 pm
Open Discussion: Closing the Gap Between AI Ambition and AI-Ready Data
AI ambition is outpacing the data foundations needed to support it. This panel unpacks why so many AI initiatives stall at the data layer – fragmented ownership, weak governance, poor quality – and debates what “AI-ready” really means, with practical steps for closing the gap.
One Day Event 7:20 pm
From Dark Data To An Agent-Ready Foundation
Enterprises are sitting on vast stores of dark, unclassified data that AI agents can’t yet trust or use. This keynote shows how to turn that hidden liability into a governed, agent-ready foundation- covering the classification, metadata, and lifecycle practices needed to get there, drawn from Iron Mountain’s experience managing information at scale.
Partner
Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain, founded in 1951, is the global leader in storage and information management services. Trusted by more than 225,000 organizations around the world, including 95% of the Fortune 1000, Iron Mountain stores and protects billions of information assets—including critical business information, highly sensitive data, and cultural and historical artifacts—across a real estate network of more than 9.1 million square meters in over 1,400 facilities across more than 60 countries.
