Miami, June 2, 2026
Artefact announced today that it has received the Starburst Emerging Partner of the Year 2026 at AI & Datanova Miami.
MIAMI, FL – June 2, 2026 – Artefact, the global consulting firm dedicated to data and AI transformation has been named the 2026 Emerging Partner of the Year by Starburst, the leading enterprise intelligence platform. The prestigious accolade was announced at Starburst’s annual conference, AI & Datanova 2026, held in Miami, Florida.
The Starburst AI & Data Visionary Awards honor an elite group of customers and partners who are redefining what is possible with data and AI, harnessing these technologies to deliver transformative results, accelerate innovation, and shape the future of their industries.
Driving the Future of AI-Ready Enterprises
As enterprises face the complex challenge of transitioning from isolated AI pilots to fully scaled, production-grade autonomous systems, the partnership between Artefact and Starburst has proven to be a critical differentiator.
Artefact was recognized for its comprehensive, AI-native services that cover the entire transformation journey, from building robust data foundations to deploying autonomous agents capable of reasoning and executing end-to-end workflows. When paired with Starburst’s distributed data and enterprise intelligence platform, Artefact provides organizations with the talent, methodology, and execution power required to build a governed, scalable, and AI-ready enterprise.
“Data and AI are the engines of transformation across every industry,” said Matt Fuller, Co-Founder at Starburst. “The winners of this year’s AI & Data Visionary Awards exemplify what’s possible when bold vision, strong leadership, and execution come together with the power of Starburst. We’re proud to celebrate partners like Artefact who are setting the standard for enterprise AI.”
A Strong, Synergy-Driven Partnership
Over the past year, Artefact and Starburst have established a powerful, synergistic partnership designed to solve the modern enterprise’s biggest bottleneck: data fragmentation.
While Starburst’s platform provides secure, federated access to complete enterprise context without the cost and complexity of traditional data consolidation, Artefact delivers the strategic blueprint and delivery muscle. Together, the two companies enable global brands to unlock data across on-premises systems, hybrid architectures, and multiple clouds, ensuring that AI platforms and applications are powered by trusted, real-time, and actionable data.
“We are thrilled to be recognized by Starburst as the 2026 Emerging Partner of the Year,” said Akhilesh Kale, Partner and Andrew Ash, Vice-President of Engineering at Artefact. “This award is a testament to the synergy our teams have built this year. By combining Starburst’s industry-leading enterprise intelligence platform with Artefact’s AI-native engineering and consulting expertise, we are uniquely positioned to help our clients move past the experimentation phase and into the era of true autonomous enterprise AI.”
Celebrating Ecosystem-Wide Innovation
As part of the 2026 AI & Data Visionary Awards, Starburst also celebrated trailblazing organizations across its global ecosystem. Artefact extends its congratulations to fellow partner award recipients, including NVIDIA (AI Visionary Partner of the Year), Dell Technologies (OEM Partner of the Year), and Datacouch (Enablement Partner of the Year), as well as visionary customer winners such as GEICO, Citizens Financial Group, Highmark Health, Vizient, Spreetail, and Inter&Co.
By continuing to deepen its partnership with Starburst, Artefact remains committed to leading the vanguard of data democratization, open data architectures, and next-generation agentic AI.
About Artefact
Artefact is a leading global consulting firm dedicated to accelerating the adoption of data and AI to positively impact people and organizations. The team specializes in data & AI transformation and AI/data-driven marketing to drive tangible business results across the entire enterprise value chain – with a focus on top and bottom line business value. Artefact offers the most comprehensive set of data-driven solutions per industry, built on deep data science and cutting-edge AI technologies, delivering AI projects at scale in all industry sectors.
From strategy to design to implementation, Artefact offers an end-to-end approach and solutions: data & AI strategy, data quality and governance, data platforms, AI Factory, data-driven customer experience, and marketing ROI. Our 2000 employees operate in 27 countries (Americas, Europe, Asia, Middle East, India, Africa) and we partner with 1000+ clients.
About Starburst
Starburst delivers enterprise intelligence at scale by giving organizations secure, governed access to all their data, wherever it lives. Built for distributed data environments across on-premises systems, multiple clouds, and hybrid architectures, Starburst helps enterprises power AI and analytics without the cost and complexity of traditional data consolidation.
By enabling federated access to complete enterprise context, Starburst helps AI platforms, applications, and teams move from pilots to production with trusted, actionable data. Built on open standards with Trino and Apache Iceberg, Starburst integrates with existing technologies while helping organizations avoid vendor lock-in. For more information, visit starburst.ai.
