An IT Admin's Guide to Setting Up Data-Connected AI

As enterprise interest in AI grows, IT leaders face mounting pressure to deliver value from AI — without compromising security, governance, or trust. Business teams want answers fast, but unsanctioned AI usage and hallucinated insights from disconnected tools introduce serious risk.

IT needs a way to empower innovation while retaining control. That means plugging AI into the real, governed data systems the business already uses—and doing so at scale.

Delivering shiny new AI tools, safely

IT decision-makers, architects, and data platform owners are increasingly mandated with enabling safe AI across the enterprise. From those conversations, four priorities consistently emerge:

1. Governance and security: AI tools must respect enterprise security models like SSO, RBAC, and source permissions. IT can’t support tools that create new silos or ignore compliance requirements like GDPR and HIPAA.

2. Real, grounded data: Business decisions can’t rely on hallucinations. AI needs direct, secure access to authoritative systems like ERPs, CRMs, and finance tools.

3. Scalability and ease of implementation: Rolling out AI to an entire organization can’t require hundreds of manual setups. IT wants a one-time integration that scales instantly across user accounts.

4. Business alignment and ROI: AI should support measurable outcomes in sales, finance, marketing, and customer success—not just serve as a novelty.

Why data-connected AI matters

For AI to truly drive real business value, it must be connected to real enterprise systems. Otherwise, insights are limited to guesswork, static snapshots, or hallucinated outputs that erode trust.

When AI is connected to live systems like your ERP, CRM, and financial databases, every prompt is powered by accurate, up-to-date information. That means:

• Faster, more reliable decisions: AI delivers real answers from your systems, not fabricated or outdated data.

• Trusted insights: Stakeholders can validate responses against known data sources.

• Operational efficiency: Teams can ask natural-language questions and get instant answers, without waiting on reports.

• Improved governance: Access is controlled, auditable, and aligned with existing security protocols.

With a data-connected AI platform, you're not just experimenting with AI—you're operationalizing it across the business.

Connect AI: Enterprise data, grounded answers for AI

Connect AI gives organizations a platform approach to securely bring real data into AI agents, assistants, copilots, and frameworks. With CData Connect AI as the backbone, IT can:

• Directly connect AI to live, governed enterprise data sources

• Maintain existing authentication and permission structures

• Enable every user in the organization to use AI with the same connector

• Monitor and audit usage to meet compliance standards

From experimental to enterprise-ready: Setting up Connect AI

With Connect AI, IT teams can move fast without sacrificing governance. Here's how simple it is to get started:

1. Create an organization in Claude or ChatGPT

Start by creating an organization-level account in your preferred AI tool (e.g., Claude Team or ChatGPT Team). This provides centralized control over user access and tool settings.

2. Set up CData Connect AI and invite users

Next, set up CData Connect AI and configure your base enterprise data connections (e.g., Salesforce, NetSuite, Snowflake, etc.). You can share any of these with other users if everyone should have the same level of access. Invite relevant users to the Connect AI org.

3. Authenticate source credentials to inherit permissions

Each user logs into Connect AI and authenticates with their own credentials to the source systems. This ensures they inherit role-based permissions and access only the data they’re entitled to.

4. Add the CData connector and enable it org-wide

Install the CData custom connector into Claude or ChatGPT at the organization level. Once enabled, it will automatically appear under "Connectors" for every user. Users simply log into their Connect AI account and AI will use their credentialed pass-through permissions when fetching data.

5. Govern and monitor access via Connect AI and AI admin panels

IT administrators can monitor data usage and access from both the Connect AI admin interface and the LLM organization admin dashboard. Full audit trails and access controls help meet governance and compliance needs. Turn off AI MCP tools and controls, or onboard and offboard data access users at will.

A foundation for secure, scalable AI across the enterprise

Connect AI transforms AI from a risky side project into a governed, enterprise-ready platform. It helps IT leaders:

• Ground AI insights in real, accurate, governed data

• Reduce shadow AI and ensure responsible usage

• Scale AI access securely across teams

• Support multiple AI tools from a single, unified data layer

By connecting AI to the systems that matter—with governance baked in—Connect AI empowers your business to unlock real value from AI, safely and at scale.

Try Connect AI yourself with a free 14-day trial and when you’re ready book your consultation with CData AI experts to discuss how Connect AI can scale data connectivity across your company’s AI agents, assistants, and frameworks.