As a Product Leader and Consultant, I spend a lot of my time looking at the “future.” I talk to clients who are ready to change the world with Artificial Intelligence, and they have the same look in their eyes as a kid on Christmas morning. They have bought the most expensive, gourmet, organic dark chocolate cocoa powder in the world—that is the AI. They have the fancy mug and the fireplace ready. But when we get into the kitchen to actually make the drink, I have to be the one to tell them that they are about to stir that world-class chocolate into a rusty rain barrel full of lukewarm, leaf-filled water. That water is their data. It does not matter how much you spend on the AI if the liquid you are putting it into is filthy. My job is to help you strategize, plan, and clean that water before you take a single sip. If we don’t, your expensive AI is going to taste like dirt, and your investment will be wasted.
When I sit down with a client to plan an implementation, the first thing we do is a reality check. Most leaders over thirty have been at this long enough to know that things get messy, but they still hope their data is “mostly fine.” I have to gently show them that “mostly fine” is a disaster for a computer. AI does not just read your data, it eats it. If you feed it junk, it gets a digital stomach ache, which leads to hallucinations, wrong answers, and a very frustrated board of directors. In my role, I help you see the mess for what it really is. We look for the duplicates, like having two marshmallows when you only need one, or the missing fields, which is like forgetting the cup entirely. We find the formatting errors, like trying to stir your cocoa with a fork instead of a spoon. This is where the strategy comes in. We don’t just start moving files, we create a roadmap. We decide what is worth keeping and what is just digital trash that has been sitting in your garage since 2012.
Once we have a plan, we move into the implementation phase. This is where the heavy lifting happens. In the old days, we had to scrub this data by hand, line by line. Now, I bring in high-tech tools that act like a professional filtration system for that rain barrel. These products are designed to catch the dirt as the data moves from your old, dusty servers into your shiny new AI system.
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Datamigration AI: This is an end-to-end “copilot” that uses AI agents to automatically map, profile, and validate your data as it moves, making the process much faster.
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Flatfile: This tool is an expert at fixing messy spreadsheets, automatically detecting the structure of your files and cleaning up duplicates or missing fields during the move.
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Astera Centerprise: A zero-code suite that lets you drag and drop your data into place while checking for quality and cleansing mistakes without needing to write code.
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Osmos: A smart transformation engine that cleans and reshapes your data as it flows through your existing pipes, making it perfect for the target system.
My team and I don’t just hand you a tool and walk away. We iterate. We run a small “sanity check” first, moving a tiny bit of data to see how it looks in the new system. We use custom scripts and prompts, our secret family recipe is to make sure the AI knows exactly how you want your data to look. If the first batch isn’t creamy and perfect, we tweak the heat and the filter until it is.
The goal of a Consultant or Product Leader like me is to make sure that when you finally launch, you aren’t just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. You are sitting down with a cup of cocoa that is rich, smooth, and exactly what you paid for. You want to ask your AI a question and get an answer you can actually trust. Clean data gives you that trust. It gives you the clarity to see where your business is going instead of just wondering why your expensive new tool is giving you the wrong names and numbers. Strategy is about more than just picking a product, it is about understanding your specific “kitchen.” Do you have a gallon of data or a whole swimming pool? Do we need to be extra careful with private customer information? These are the questions we answer together. We move from the big idea to a practical plan, and then we build it. By the time we are done, your data isn’t a liability anymore, it is your greatest asset.
If you are ready to stop drinking rainwater and start building an AI that actually works, let’s talk about your data. Is your “milk” ready for the chocolate, or are we looking at a rain barrel? I want to hear about the biggest data mess you have ever uncovered in your career. Share your stories and tag @iamcezarmoreno on social media so we can talk about it. Also, make sure to follow, subscribe, or join the newsletter at https://cezarmoreno.com to keep up with how we are turning messy data into business gold.
