Value-First Platform: AI Data Readiness — Shadow Data
Hosts: Trisha Merriam, Chris Carolan
March 17, 2026
Trisha Merriam brings shadow data to Chris Carolan: the context that lives in spreadsheets, inboxes, call transcripts and people's heads. People notice when context is missing. AI acts anyway. Chris's answer is the unified customer view, agreed first and then used to find where the data lives.
Key takeaways
Every organization already has a unified customer view, assembled by hand from spreadsheets, inboxes and conversations for one moment at a time. Shadow data is what that view is made of.
People can tell when context is missing. AI usually can't, and it will act on the data it has unless it's told to look for the gap.
Bringing one important source in pays off right away. Getting Stripe payment data into HubSpot lets revenue shape where ad platforms and sales attention go.
Full call transcripts are the shadow data almost nobody keeps. Note-takers and summaries miss a lot, and AI needs the whole conversation.
Unless you're building something sophisticated, put the data in and ask AI. Don't decide in advance that it will be too much context.
The way to audit shadow data without triggering defensiveness is the unified customer view. When the request comes from a goal everyone agreed on, it stops being one team asking another.
Once the conversation moves past tools, "source of truth" matters less. Data goes where each team needs to see it, and AI carries the upkeep the system-of-record idea was built to manage.
Decide what the unified view should hold before the tools decide it. Then ask where each piece of data lives and who is in charge of it.
Don't make decisions on perceived difficulty, cost or time. Most of those estimates no longer hold.
Start from business goals, agree on the unified customer view, find where the data lives (including in people's heads), and prioritize by system proximity, cost and the people involved. Then keep the conversations going while you build a proof of concept.
Agreement isn't one and done. Keep confirming the view is still good. Where it touches commissions or KPIs, go through the team's own leader.
Salespeople often hold an accurate unified view in their heads, and that's part of what makes them valuable. It's also where the shadow data is.
AI that draws on recorded sales conversations can move what resonates with buyers from sales into marketing's hands.
When AI works the way it should inside a change effort, use the moment. Those are trust-building moments, and uncertainty is what keeps people tied to the process they know.
Transcript
This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors. It is provided to help you skim and search the conversation.
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