Ben Schein — Chief AI and Analytics Officer, Domo
Published:
Clean upstream and you fix a definition once, in a pipeline, deterministically, and every run afterward inherits it free. Clean downstream and you pay a probabilistic model to guess at the same mess on every run, forever. One is a repair. The other is a subscription to your own sloppiness.
What does Ben Schein say on The Agile Brand podcast?
Ben Schein, Chief AI and Analytics Officer, Domo, says: Ben Schein of Domo explains how poor customer data now translates into measurable AI costs because models repeatedly incur compute to reconcile inconsistent inputs, turning cleanup into a recurring bill rather than a one-time labor expense. He argues for upstream data governance, downstream observability, clearer human roles (lead vs. slop), and choosing appropriately sized models so organizations buy operational trust and cheaper runs instead of amplifying existing messes.
From: The Agile Brand podcast
Cite as: Ben Schein. (2026). On The Agile Brand podcast. Retrieved from https://research.agilebrandguide.com/insights/ben-schein-clean-upstream-and-you-fix-a-definition-once-in-a-pipeline