Are Your Clients Prepared for the New Era of Accountability?
For years, businesses have treated data growth like a badge of honour. "More storage, more insights, more AI, more everything." But here we are, 2025, and reality is setting in. This isn’t sustainable.
- AI is making bad decisions because it's being trained on unstructured, unverified junk.
- Regulators are tightening compliance laws, demanding businesses actually know what data they have.
- Storage costs are spiraling, with enterprises paying millions just to keep ROT data they’ll never use.
- ESG commitments are contradicted by the insane energy consumption of storing vast, useless data estates.
This is the reckoning. The decade of unstructured data chaos is over. The question is: are you ready, or will you be forced to react when it’s too late?
How We Got Here: The Era of Data Hoarding
The past decade was about data growth at all costs.
- "Storage is cheap!" ... Until it wasn’t.
- "Keep everything just in case!" ... Until compliance regulators started asking why.
- "AI will figure it out!" ... Until businesses realised AI models trained on junk just produce confident nonsense faster.
For years, organisations built massive data lakes, but never structured them properly. Now, regulators are demanding control. AI needs clarity. CFOs want cost reductions. ESG targets are under scrutiny. And the businesses that spent a decade hoarding now have a serious problem.
The Core Pillars of the Data Reckoning
1️⃣ THE COST NIGHTMARE: WASTING MILLIONS ON DIGITAL LANDFILL
The “storage is cheap” myth is finally collapsing.
- 30% of enterprise data is ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial).
- 50% is Dark Data and no one even knows what’s in it.
- Only 20% is actually useful.
- Storing 50PB of data costs £3M–£5M per year.
- A third of that is ROT. That’s £1M wasted annually on garbage.
- Backup costs, cloud fees, compliance overheads—add another few million.
If data was a physical warehouse, no CFO would approve this spending. But in digital? Nobody questions it.
Until now.
2️⃣ THE COMPLIANCE CRUNCH: REGULATORS EXPECT YOU TO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE STORING
The "we don’t know what’s in our data estate" excuse doesn’t fly anymore.
- GDPR turns 7. If you’ve been blindly retaining data, you may now be legally non-compliant.
- NIS2 & DORA are in force. Regulated industries must prove they can manage cyber & operational risk.
- The AI Act is law. If you’re using AI, expect audits, explainability demands, and real accountability.
The regulators aren’t coming. They’re already here.
Businesses that haven’t implemented data governance yet will be forced into compliance panic mode.
3️⃣ THE AI CHAOS: BAD DATA IN = BAD DECISIONS OUT
The AI gold rush is in full swing.
Every company wants AI-driven insights, automation, predictive power. Every boardroom is asking, "How do we scale AI?" But most companies don’t have a data problem... they have a data quality problem.
- AI models are hallucinating nonsense because they’re trained on unstructured, irrelevant data.
- 44PB of data scanned? 30% was ROT, 50% was unclassified.
- AI is just making poor decisions faster and with confidence, at scale.
If you can’t trust your data, you can’t trust your AI. The companies that govern their data properly will unlock competitive advantage.
The ones that don’t? They’ll pay for it through AI failures, compliance fines, or worse.
4️⃣ THE ESG REALITY CHECK: DATA STORAGE IS NOT "GREEN"
Businesses are shouting about net zero, but quietly storing petabytes of unstructured junk.
- Data centres are energy-hungry.
- Cloud storage has an emissions footprint.
- Keeping ROT data isn’t just financially stupid—it’s environmentally irresponsible.
And the carbon offset argument?
- "Oh, we use Amazon’s carbon-neutral data centres."
- "We buy offsets, so it’s fine!"
Wrong.
- Offsets don’t erase emissions... they just move them around.
- Data centres still require vast amounts of power, whether "green" or not.
- The best way to reduce your footprint is to stop storing useless data.
ESG compliance is tightening. The companies blindly hoarding data will get called out for it.
The Fix: How Businesses Can Prepare Before It’s Too Late
The reckoning isn’t coming, it’s already here. The businesses that act now will:
- Save millions in storage & compliance costs.
- Reduce AI risk & regulatory exposure.
- Actually align ESG strategy with reality.
- Unlock competitive advantages with well-managed data.
The ones that don’t? They’ll be playing catch-up in crisis mode.
What Needs to Happen Next
1️⃣ Audit your data estate.
- What’s ROT? What’s Dark Data? What’s actually useful?
- If you don’t know, you’re already behind.
2️⃣ Start classifying and deleting ROT.
- Data governance isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s business survival.
3️⃣ Build a strategy for AI-ready data.
- You can’t train AI on garbage and expect good results.
4️⃣ Stop treating compliance as an afterthought.
- NIS2, DORA, the AI Act are here. Are you ready?
Final Thought: The Data Reckoning is Here. Are You Ready?
For years, businesses have stored everything and hoped for the best. That era is over. The costs are real. The risks are real. The regulations are real.
This isn’t just an IT issue anymore... it’s a business-wide reckoning that every leadership team needs to address. If you’re still sitting on a vast, ungoverned, ROT-filled data estate, then 2025 is the year it catches up with you. If you’d rather be in control before the fines, AI failures, or financial pressures force your hand, check out Lightning IQ—because the businesses that fix this now will dominate the next decade.
Nick Pollard leads EMEA consulting for One Discovery. He is a seasoned leader with more than 20 years of experience working in real-time investigation, legal and compliance workflows across highly regulated environments like banking, energy and healthcare as well as national security organizations. You can contact at nick.pollard AT onediscovery.com
Nick Pollard : Mar 23, 2025 1:45:28 PM
