Why Your AI Strategy Is Really Just Your Data Strategy

Christian J. Ward has spent his career turning data into competitive advantage, from NLP-driven signal analysis on Wall Street to synchronizing brand data across hundreds of endpoints as CDO at Yext. In this conversation with Saket, he explains why your AI strategy is really just your data strategy, how opening Yext's data via MCP servers transformed client interactions overnight, and why he tracks token usage by department as a core CDO metric. Chapters 00:00 | Cold open 01:02 | What Yext does 08:28 | Data as a moat 14:17 | Why AI is your data strategy 16:43 | Inverse prompting explained 21:09 | NLP signals on Wall Street 29:00 | Tokens as currency 32:55 | Opening data via MCP 40:02 | Data partnership strategies 50:08 | What CDOs should measure About Christian J. Ward Christian J. Ward is Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President at Yext, the digital visibility solution that synchronizes brand data across hundreds of endpoints worldwide through knowledge graphs. He has worked in structured data since age 23, starting his first data company on Wall Street. His career includes founding Ockham Research, where he built NLP-based signal processing of TV closed captions for financial advisors, and serving as CDO at SourceMedia and Infogroup. He also held roles at Thomson Reuters and BNY ConvergEx. Christian is the co-author of "Data Leverage: Unlocking the Surprising Growth Potential of Data Partnerships." He holds a BS in Finance from the University of Florida. Resources mentioned "Data Leverage: Unlocking the Surprising Growth Potential of Data Partnerships" by Christian J. Ward "The Master Algorithm" by Pedro Domingos Subscribe for more conversations with data and AI leaders building the future of enterprise data. Connect with Christian J. Ward:   / wardchristianj   Connect with Yext:   / yext   Visit Yext: https://www.yext.com/?utm_source=link...