Takeaways From The Forrester Wave™: Data Lakehouses, Q3 2026
Data lakehouses are no longer just analytics warehouses—they're now the operational backbone of agentic AI in the enterprise.
Why it matters
As AI shifts from insight generation to autonomous execution, the infrastructure beneath agents (governed, real-time data delivery) has become a competitive requirement. Practitioners deploying agents need to understand how lakehouse platforms now compete on agent-readiness, not just query speed.
The key facts
9 to knowForrester Wave evaluation of data lakehouse vendors (Q3 2026)
Lakehouse architecture repositioned as operational foundation for agentic AI
Key capability shift: trusted, governed, real-time data delivery for agent reasoning and execution
Agent deployment driving rethinking of enterprise data infrastructure expectations
Lakehouse market positioning has shifted from analytics consolidation to agent operational foundation
Enterprises deploying agents require real-time, governed, trusted data pipelines
AI execution (agent action) now drives lakehouse architecture requirements, not just insight generation
Forrester Wave Q3 2026 evaluation of data lakehouse vendors
Agent deployment forcing rethink of enterprise data infrastructure expectations
Go to the source
Forrester Blogforrester.com
Publisher excerpt: The enterprise data lakehouse is evolving. Once designed primarily to consolidate data for analytics, today’s lakehouse has become the operational foundation for agentic AI, delivering the trusted, governed, and real-time data that intelligent agents require to reason and act. As AI shifts from…