CData Taps Ken Yagen to Shape AI-Native Connectivity

/ AI, Application Development, Enterprise Applications
CData Taps Ken Yagen to Shape AI-Native Connectivity

The News

CData has appointed Ken Yagen as Chief Product Officer to lead product strategy and accelerate innovation across its AI-native connectivity portfolio, including its managed Model Context Protocol (MCP) offering, Connect AI. Yagen will guide CData’s dual enterprise + ISV platform strategy as the company scales connectivity infrastructure for AI systems and autonomous agents.

Analysis

AI Connectivity Enters Its Platform Era

The appointment of Ken Yagen signals how quickly the market for “AI-ready connectivity” is maturing. As enterprises shift from experimentation to operationalizing agents, connectivity is becoming a decisive chokepoint. According to theCUBE Research and ECI’s Day 2 findings, 59.4% of organizations rank automation and AIOps as their top lever for accelerating operations, yet automation can only escalate if AI systems can reliably understand and act within enterprise systems.

Our research also highlights a broad rise in AI-enabled enterprise modernization. AI/ML remains the top planned investment area for 70%+ of organizations, underscoring that developers need contextual, governed, system-level access for both LLMs and autonomous agents.

CData’s shift toward AI-native connectivity, by embedding semantic intelligence and business logic into the connectivity layer, aligns with a larger pattern: data access alone is no longer enough. AI systems need context as code.

The AI Application Market Is Reshaping Connectivity

Modern enterprise application development is pivoting toward agentic workflows, distributed automation, and system-level reasoning. Developers aren’t just wiring APIs; they’re enabling autonomous workflows that must operate safely inside systems such as NetSuite, SAP, Salesforce, and custom business applications.

Key market shifts include:

  • Explosion of AI-based developer tools: 89.6% of orgs use them already.
  • Rising use of AI in performance optimization (80.5%) and issue detection (84.5%), increasing pressure for deeper contextual access.
  • Hybrid as the dominant deployment model (54.4%), meaning agents must operate across fragmented data and application surfaces.
  • API management and connectivity ranking among top planned technology adoptions (~36%+), driven by AI integration demands.

The market is moving beyond “connect the API” to “teach the agent how the system works.” This is exactly the gap AI-native connectivity platforms are emerging to fill.

A CPO with Deep Integration DNA Steers an Emerging Category

Bringing in a MuleSoft veteran matters in a market where API ecosystems, semantic models, and system-level governance converge. For developers, Yagen’s background in high-scale integration platforms foreshadows a product direction focused on:

  • Standardized MCP patterns for AI workloads
  • Shared semantic layers that reduce duplication across teams
  • Governed data access patterns for hybrid and distributed environments
  • Developer tooling that abstracts system complexity so agents can operate with predictable behavior

As enterprises increasingly deploy AI internally, and as ISVs rush to embed AI features, a unified connectivity layer becomes a strategic pillar. Yagen’s arrival indicates CData is positioning to become that layer, not just for AI data flows, but for operational context and safety controls.

Developers Face Fragmented Systems, Inconsistent Access, and Context Gaps

Application teams continue to confront several persistent barriers:

  • Integration complexity remains high: 53.1% cite integration issues as a top challenge in API lifecycle tooling.
  • Security pressures grow as AI adoption accelerates: 57.6% report fully integrated cloud security → development workflows, but this still leaves a large portion operating with partial visibility.
  • Tool sprawl and inconsistent data models slow down agent development, especially when each system must be manually modeled for an LLM or agent.
  • Hybrid fragmentation complicates everything: enterprises operate across SaaS, on-prem, edge, and multi-cloud simultaneously.

These issues illustrate why developers increasingly need an AI-fluent connectivity layer and not just individual integrations.

AI-Native Connectivity May Become the New Baseline for Agentic Builds

While outcomes vary by organization, this move, combined with market momentum, suggests several directional shifts for developers:

  • Greater reliance on standardized MCP interfaces to reduce custom agent wiring
  • More adoption of semantic-aware connectors that handle relational, workflow, and business logic complexity
  • Increased demand for managed connectivity platforms that ensure compliance, identity governance, and context enrichment
  • A shift from DIY integrations toward embedded connectivity layers as ISVs seek faster AI enablement

Developers may find that platform-level semantic connectivity offers a more scalable path than continuing to hand-craft system knowledge for each agent. While results will vary, the industry trend points toward context-rich connectivity as an emerging foundation for enterprise AI.

Looking Ahead

Market Outlook

As agentic architectures expand, connectivity becomes both a scaling factor and a safety boundary. We are seeing mounting pressure for unified, governed, and context-aware access to business systems, especially as AI touches more production workflows. With hybrid and multi-surface environments dominating, the market is likely to consolidate around platforms capable of delivering not just access, but meaning.

What This Means for CData

Yagen’s appointment injects seasoned integration leadership at a critical inflection point. If CData can successfully position Connect AI as a shared context and control fabric for enterprise AI, the company may become a default layer for both enterprise teams and ISVs building agentic features. Expect future moves around deeper semantic modeling, stronger governance primitives, and broader MCP ecosystem expansion.

Author

  • Paul Nashawaty

    Paul Nashawaty, Practice Leader and Lead Principal Analyst, specializes in application modernization across build, release and operations. With a wealth of expertise in digital transformation initiatives spanning front-end and back-end systems, he also possesses comprehensive knowledge of the underlying infrastructure ecosystem crucial for supporting modernization endeavors. With over 25 years of experience, Paul has a proven track record in implementing effective go-to-market strategies, including the identification of new market channels, the growth and cultivation of partner ecosystems, and the successful execution of strategic plans resulting in positive business outcomes for his clients.

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