TL;DR: Quest Data Intelligence 16 introduces new AI-driven capabilities to reduce risk, deliver trusted data faster, and scale AI with confidence. AI-powered Policy Manager accelerates policy creation and enforces governance at the point of data access, while an expanded QuestAI assistant library gives users instant, natural language access to technical, business and governance context across data assets.
You need to deliver trusted, AI-ready data faster to support growing analytics and AI initiatives. But as AI adoption accelerates, so does the complexity of managing data risk and trust at scale.
Data is being used in more places, by more users, and increasingly by AI models and agents. At the same time, regulatory pressure is rising, and the cost of getting governance wrong continues to grow.
But today, most organizations are not equipped to keep up.
Data lacks consistent business context. Governance policies exist but are not enforced where data is actually accessed and used. And as teams try to move faster, the gap between trusted data delivery and effective risk control continues to widen.
The result is a difficult tradeoff. Move faster and risk increases. Slow down and AI and analytics initiatives stall.
Quest Data Intelligence 16 changes that
Quest Data Intelligence 16 is already a part of the Quest Trusted Data Management Platform. This post provides a deeper look at what’s new in version 16 and what it means for the way your team governs, delivers, and trusts data in practice.
The release introduces new AI-driven capabilities designed to help you reduce data and AI risk while accelerating trusted data delivery. With AI-powered Policy Manager and an expanded library of QuestAI assistants, Quest Data Intelligence 16 enables enforceable governance and semantic clarity, so you can deliver trusted AI outcomes with confidence.
With the version 16 release, erwin Data Intelligence by Quest has been rebranded as Quest Data Intelligence, a new name with the same proven data intelligence and governance capabilities used by leading data teams worldwide.
Enforce governance where data is used with AI-powered Policy Manager
Governance policies are often well-defined but rarely enforced at the point where data is accessed and used.
As regulatory frameworks like the EU AI Act, GDPR, CCPA, and NIST AI RMF expand, organizations must interpret requirements, apply them consistently, and ensure compliance across growing data environments. Manual approaches slow progress and leave gaps that expose both data and AI initiatives to risk.
Quest Data Intelligence 16 introduces an AI-powered Policy Manager to operationalize governance and enforce it in practice.
With Policy Manager, you can:
- Automate policy creation from regulatory frameworks
Use AI to generate classification, masking, and retention policies aligned to requirements such as the EU AI Act, GDPR, CCPA, and NIST AI RMF - Apply policies directly to data assets
Map policies to the data they govern using metadata and lineage - Convert policies into executable policy-as-code
Translate governance rules into enforceable, auditable controls across platforms like Snowflake and Databricks - Enforce policies at the point of data access
Ensure the right data is used correctly by both users and AI systems - Continuously monitor compliance and reduce risk
Maintain visibility, auditability, and ongoing assurance across your environment
Policy Manager shifts governance from documentation to enforcement, helping reduce regulatory exposure while enabling AI to scale with control.
Try the interactive demo to see Policy Manager in action:
Unlock governed data context instantly with QuestAI assistants
Even with governance in place, organizations still struggle to deliver trusted data quickly and ensure it is understood and used correctly.
Users spend too much time searching for data, validating definitions, and tracking down ownership or lineage. This slows time to insight and limits confidence in analytics and AI outcomes.
With Quest Data Intelligence 16, QuestAI expands into a library of AI assistants designed to deliver governed, trusted context on demand.
Building on the Stewardship Assistant, QuestAI now provides natural language access to business, technical, and governance context across your data ecosystem.
QuestAI assistants include:
- Stewardship Assistant
Speeds data catalog classification, definition and enrichment and business glossary development to improve governance coverage - Catalog Assistant
Enables search and exploration of metadata, assets, and schemas across the catalog - Glossary and Ownership Assistant
Provides clear business definitions and ownership to improve understanding and accountability - Data Lineage Assistant
Delivers end-to-end lineage visibility to support transparency and impact analysis - Data Marketplace Assistant
Surfaces governed data products, datasets, and AI-relevant assets for discovery and reuse - Universal Semantic Assistant
Brings all assistants together in a unified experience, delivering consistent, trusted context across users and use cases
With QuestAI, users can simply ask questions and get immediate answers about meaning, ownership, lineage, and governance.
No more searching across systems. No more manual back-and-forth between teams.
Just fast, self-service access to governed, trusted insights so everyone works from the same context with confidence.
Try the interactive demo to explore QuestAI assistants:
What you can accomplish with Quest Data Intelligence 16
Quest Data Intelligence 16 closes the gap between governance and AI, helping organizations move faster without increasing risk.
With this release, you can:
- Reduce data and AI risk
Enforce governance policies at the point of access and use - Accelerate trusted data delivery
Provide faster access to well-governed, well-understood data - Improve trust in analytics and AI outcomes
Deliver consistent definitions, lineage, and governance-backed context - Enable self-service access to governed data
Give users natural language access to trusted insights - Scale AI with confidence
Ensure AI systems operate on governed, compliant, and trusted data
With Quest Data Intelligence 16, governance becomes both a control mechanism and an accelerator, enabling faster, more confident use of data across analytics and AI.
