Stop the bleeding: Bad data governance is costing you millions

IDC research has found that unstructured data—videos, documents, emails, images, chat logs, and now AI-generated outputs—makes up as much as 90% of all enterprise information. Historically, organizations have treated this massive volume of data as merely a storage challenge, leading to an expensive and unsustainable cycle: store everything > buy more storage > store even more. The result is massive cost burdens, compliance exposure, and operational inefficiencies.

In 2026, this approach is strategically crippling. As compliance, privacy, and AI-readiness move to the forefront of boardroom discussions, the focus shifts from simply avoiding fines to maximizing financial and strategic opportunity. Bad data governance is no longer just a minor inefficiency; it is a significant financial drain. Gartner research indicates that poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million annually.  To break this cycle, modern enterprises require visibility, governance, and policy-driven automation rather than just more storage.

Iron Mountain InSight® DXP is an intelligent content platform uniquely positioned to solve these challenges by managing content from creation and capture through to retention and disposition. By integrating physical records with digital assets, it provides a unified experience that transforms unstructured, fragmented information into a competitive advantage.

1. Data quality and classification: The AI imperative

The 2026 crisis: With the rapid adoption of large language models (LLMs) and autonomous agents, the quality and trustworthiness of the input data are now critical. However, many businesses are struggling with significant capability gaps.

• Research from Iron Mountain, in partnership with FT Longitude, reveals that 64% of organizations find their AI readiness activities do not generate consistent value.
• 69% of organizations report similar struggles regarding data integrity and their ability to source information. 
• These shortfalls risk a "garbage-in, garbage-out" scenario that can sabotage AI reliability and cripple ROI.

The solution: InSight DXP applies AI models and automated metadata extraction to classify content, recognize business documents, extract contextual information, and detect/redact sensitive information. This non-negotiable step prepares your data for AI, transforming it into semantically rich datasets that support analytics and agentic workflows. In fact, InSight DXP customers report that their top driver of satisfaction today is better decision making through analysis of unstructured content.¹

2. Unstructured data powers AI: The new strategic fuel

The 2026 crisis: With structured data reaching a utilization "ceiling," unstructured data (emails, logs, video) must become the primary fuel for training generative AI systems. Yet, most organizations cannot answer foundational questions about what they have, where it is, who owns it, or if it still holds value. Traditional siloed governance often fails to provide a complete picture of this landscape.

The solution: InSight DXP solves this lack of visibility by creating a unified view across the entire enterprise, connecting directly to on-prem repositories, enterprise productivity solutions, legacy systems, and physical archives. By integrating physical records with digital assets into a "single pane of glass," the platform allows you to discover and remediate data chaos at the source. 

The platform doesn't just store data; it helps understand your unstructured data, wherever it lives. By analyzing files stored in third party data sources and identifying metadata such as file size, file type, ownership, access frequency, and data aging patterns, it identifies the redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) content that clogs your systems. This intelligence enables InSight DXP to identify records and surface actionable governance recommendations, while empowering you to delete ROT  files or archive content to reduce both risk and storage costs.

This level of visibility is no longer optional. With IDC research finding that more than 60% of unstructured data is inactive or obsolete, the ability to quickly identify orphaned files that consume budget without delivering value is the difference between a storage crisis and a strategic advantage.

3. Autonomous data management: Turning cost into control

The 2026 crisis: The default practice of "retaining everything indefinitely" is no longer just a storage issue; it is a major compliance and legal liability. Without clear visibility, organizations risk holding sensitive or regulated data past its legal life, creating massive exposure during audits or litigation. Relying on manual human oversight to catch every record-keeping error is unsustainable and prone to failure.

The solution: InSight DXP delivers policy-based, autonomous lifecycle management.  It integrates with Iron Mountain’s Policy Center solution, our cloud-based retention and privacy management platform, to supply and apply records retention schedules and rules through its advanced legal hold and retention management capabilities. This allows organizations to enforce consistent governance across both digital assets and physical records for truly holistic compliance.

By integrating InSight DXP with Policy Center, organizations can meet global obligations with total confidence, backed by a library of 77,000 legal citations covering 130 countries. Instead of relying on manual oversight, teams can implement automated workflows that maintain strict regulatory alignment and minimize the risk of human error. This transition immediately reclaims budget by converting looming storage expansion costs into available capital for strategic initiatives. The platform maintains audit-readiness at all times by generating sophisticated, pre-built or custom reports designed for both rigorous external audits and internal executive reviews. Ultimately, by automating these complex processes, InSight DXP removes the burden of manual record-keeping, allowing IT and Compliance teams to shift their focus from reactive risk management to proactive value creation.

Real-world impact: The “good data dividend”

The methodology built into InSight DXP is already proven. A global financial institution partnered with Iron Mountain to identify and delete over 10 million files with no business value, resulting in the immediate reclamation of over 6 terabytes (TB) of data (directly reducing storage expenses) and simultaneously reducing their overall risk profile.

Organizations that modernize their information strategy can secure a "good data dividend"—an increase in revenue due to improved information management—which research shows is worth an average of $1.9 billion. InSight DXP provides the foundation needed to stop the bleeding and turn unstructured data into a strategic financial asset.

Take the next step toward financial control

Moving beyond compliance means taking control of your information lifecycle. See how InSight DXP automates records disposition, eliminates costly ROT, and delivers the single pane of glass your enterprise lacks.


_{¹Source: Iron Mountain Customer Survey, August 2025}