Why Companies Are Ditching Warehouses for Lakehouses

January 14, 2025

A quiet revolution is brewing in the enterprise data world. Companies are breaking up with their traditional cloud data warehouses, and they're not being subtle about it. A whopping 41% have already jumped ship, seeking refuge in the arms of a newer, sexier architecture: the data lakehouse.

According to a fresh report from Dremio that surveyed 563 IT decision-makers, this isn't just a casual fling — it's a full-blown paradigm shift. By 2028, more than three-fifths of organizations (67%) plan to run most of their analytics on lakehouses, up from 55% today. But why the mass exodus?

"Follow the money," says William McKnight, president of McKnight Consulting Group. The report reveals that 19% of companies cite cost efficiency as their primary motivation for the switch. In an era where CFOs scrutinize every dollar spent on tech infrastructure, the lakehouse's promise of unified data access (17%) and ease of use (17%) makes it an irresistible proposition.

But there's a bigger story here: AI anxiety.

One anonymous IT leader confessed in the report that the “rapid integration of generative AI and large language models” has sent shockwaves through the company. “This shift has created anxiety among employees about job security,” they admitted, painting a picture of a workforce grappling with technological whiplash.

They're not alone. The study found that 85% of organizations are already using data lakehouses to develop AI models. It's a stark reminder that in 2025, being "AI-ready" isn't just corporate jargon — it's a survival imperative.

Read the full story, via CDO Trends.

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