At Neudata’s 2025 London Data Summit, data buyers and providers met to discuss the latest developments and trends within the investment data industry, from AI's efficiency gains to the growing sophistication of data products.

One of the most prevalent topics was the fast-changing global political environment and what this means for the data community. As 2025 offers new solutions for data management in the form of ever-advancing AI and LLMs, it also presents new problems. Keeping up with new technologies and the risks and complications that come with them can be difficult. Additionally, navigating and predicting economic shocks or disruptions as the global macroeconomic environment becomes more volatile represents an evolving challenge.

At the event, buyers were clear that while data is now more valuable than ever, handling it is more of a challenge. Ever-increasing quantities of data are difficult to manage, and the methodologies and sources underlying this data are becoming more important as consumer behaviours and the assumptions that underpin models change. Economic shocks often change the way consumers spend, altering data panels. As policy and economic environments become more uncertain, data panels can become more tenuous.

Continuing on the theme of data uncertainty, buyers also expressed that backtesting has become increasingly less valuable for them, as they often don’t trust the results of their own backtests, let alone vendor-provided ones. Buyers seemed to find that backtests were most valuable as a marketing tool, showing them what the data can be used for and what it can do.

However, buyers also remarked on the increasing sophistication of data products providers can build. They discussed that while many providers used to supply only raw data, that increasingly they are doing their own quantitative analysis and offering signals of their own. Even quant investors discussed that they are starting to take these kinds of signals more seriously.

While data products are growing in complexity, buyers at the summit emphasised that all data, regardless of sophistication, has value. Many discussed that LLMs and AI have given funds more tools to tease alpha out of even highly structured traditional and market datasets. They added that even if funds used the same data, they would likely identify different signals due to their differing processes. 

Overall, vendors and buyers reflected on what will undoubtedly be a year of change and transformation, as the data industry grows and matures even further, bringing new opportunities. Yet, 2025 will also likely bring challenges, as providers and buyers seek to navigate complex technological changes and political uncertainty.