We’re bringing together enterprise architecture and tech infrastructure professionals from across the Knoxville region to connect, share insights, and explore how data strategy is evolving alongside AI. At our last meetup, we explored what’s actually working to integrate AI into existing tech architectures. This time, we’re building on that foundation by diving into the critical role of data—specifically how modern approaches like data fabrics and data lakes are enabling agentic AI solutions to operate at scale and deliver real business value.
Join us for an evening of networking with drinks and pizza, along with a presentation and discussion on Data that Supports Agentic AI.
PRESENTATION: From Raw to Ready: Building the Fabric for the Agentic AI Era
As organizations race to deploy agentic AI, one truth is becoming clear: autonomous agents are only as reliable as the data they reason over. In this talk, Shishir Desai shares a practical blueprint for building clean, trustworthy data sources using the medallion architecture across modern data platforms—and explains why this foundation is now mission-critical for AI-native businesses.
Shishir will walk through the bronze, silver, and gold layers as a progression from raw ingestion to curated, business-ready data products, covering the design patterns, governance controls, and quality gates that make each layer durable at enterprise scale. He’ll share context around the evolution of data platform architectures from data warehousing to data mesh to data fabric, and share lessons learned from standing up these platforms across five industries.
The session then connects the dots to agentic AI: how well-structured gold-layer data enables agents to retrieve, reason, and act with accuracy; why semantic layers, metadata, and lineage are prerequisites for multi-agent architectures; and how governance frameworks keep autonomous systems fast, compliant, and trustworthy. Attendees will leave with a clear mental model for sequencing their own data modernization journey—and turning clean data into a genuine competitive advantage in the agentic era.
About the Speaker
Shishir Desai is a data & AI executive who builds AI-native businesses through elite data and AI teams. Currently Head of Data Analytics, Engineering, and Governance at Clayton Homes, he partners with CEOs, CFOs, and business leaders to embed data, AI, and cloud directly into core strategy, culture, and operating models—consistently delivering multi-million-dollar annualized impact across five industries.
His specialty is end-to-end transformation: modernizing enterprise and product-led data platforms, standing up AI and analytics product functions, and reshaping organizational culture so advanced technologies actually get adopted. He has pioneered AI/ML innovation across successive eras—from ML products that improved EBITDA, to GenAI applications elevating customer experience, to today’s multi-agent and agentic AI architectures for data and operations.
His focus is making AI and analytics part of day-to-day workflows—across commercial, operations, finance, and risk—rather than isolated pilots.
After the presentation, we’ll have time for you to ask questions and discuss the topic. As always, we’ll wrap up the evening with more time to mingle. These events are designed to help you connect with other Enterprise Architects and technical experts, compare notes, spark new ideas, and walk away energized with fresh insight for your projects.
Thank you to our sponsors!
ABOUT THIS GROUP
The East TN Tech Architecture User Group is dedicated to fostering a vibrant community of technology leaders and practitioners. Our mission is to promote knowledge sharing, collaborative problem-solving, and professional growth while driving innovation and excellence in enterprise architecture across industries.
This event is open to Enterprise Architects, IT Infrastructure professionals and technology team leaders. Vendors are welcome to participate when offering thought leadership, but we ask that this not be used for sales discussions.