Indiana Women in Tech Week 3 - Data Still Needs People | Toni Holcombe on AI and Data

DESCRIPTIONWhat happens when you put an AI model on top of a pile of files nobody has cleaned up? Toni Holcombe has a name for one version of that mess: a data swamp. And she has a clear answer when Jason asks whether AI will make data people irrelevant: someone still has to connect the words business users use with what the data actually means.For episode three of Indiana's Women in Tech Week, Jason sits down with Toni, a data strategy and governance professional he met at an AI and Coffee gathering in Fishers. Toni traces her path from Gateway tech support and paralegal work to teaching herself Python, building a data warehouse, and leading people through data work. They unpack bronze, silver and gold data layers in plain English, talk about structured and unstructured information, and examine why a confident answer from an LLM still needs checking.This conversation is for anyone trying to make sense of the data inside a small or growing organization, and for anyone curious about a career that mixes technical skill with people skill.CHAPTERS00:00 Jason meets Toni during Indiana's Women in Tech Week02:07 From Gateway tech support to data analytics05:38 The data terms small businesses keep hearing06:22 Bronze, silver and gold: from raw records to useful reports08:29 Structured files, unstructured files and confident AI mistakes13:03 How a data lake can turn into a data swamp14:12 What Toni means by a data warehouse15:37 Why data touches every part of a business18:38 Will AI replace the data scientist or business analyst?19:19 Closing and the education conversation aheadCONNECT WITH TONI HOLCOMBELinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toni-holcombe/CONNECT WITH JASON PADGETTJason Padgett | AI Solutions Architect | Co-Founder, Wooden Boy Industries | Host, AGI Podcast | AI Adoption, LLM Systems & Human-AI WorkflowsAGI - Advance Grow and Innovate with AI Podcast Network🌐 https://schoolsout.agipodcast.ai/CoFounder, Wooden Boy Industries🌐 https://woodenboyindustriesai.com/Chief Solutions Architect, Chakra AI Solutions🌐 https://chakrasolutions.ai/📧 jason@agipodcast.ai#WomenInTechWeek #DataStrategy #AGIPodcast