Beyond the AI and Data Hype: The Story Behind aidatalyst

While the broader business and technology sectors are often distracted by the latest AI and data hype, Matt Johl remains grounded in practical impact. His career has been defined by curiosity and an entrepreneur mindset within high-growth startups and Private Equity environments, places where data and AI aren’t just buzzwords, but play a big role in the business.

Matt didn’t just watch these organizations scale; he was a key architect of their growth. From standing up the first-ever data and AI team at Access Holdings to building a payments and reporting division from the ground up at YourCause a corporate social responsibility platform for both corporations and nonprofits, his career hasn't been about following a playbook. It has been about writing it.

I sat down with Matt to discuss the "Why" behind aidatalyst and how he’s helping firms move from reactive reporting to proactive growth.

The Builder’s Mindset: Turning Data and AI into Clarity

"I’ve always been on the entrepreneurial side," Matt says. "I’ve never really been given the keys to a finished playbook. Every position I’ve ever taken involved starting something from scratch: customer support, reporting, data analytics. I’ve always loved the challenge of being presented with a problem and having to build the infrastructure to solve it."

Matt carried this builder’s mindset into his role as Chief Data Officer at a PE firm, where he noticed a consistent theme across dozens of organizations: they lacked a "one-stop shop" for reporting. Leaders were struggling with data trapped in disparate systems such as CRM, POS, operations tools, and NetSuite, all while relying on manual Excel files to bridge the gaps.

"I saw how much time was being poured into end-of-the-month books and quarterly reporting packages," Matt says. "These are consistent, repetitive tasks that people are doing every month. It was an 'Aha moment' for me when I realized that if we could streamline that infrastructure, people would actually want to look at their data more often because it wouldn’t be such a manual burden to produce."

The Hand-in-Hand Realization: Data Meets AI

This focus on data infrastructure gave Matt a unique vantage point as AI began to dominate the conversation. After conducting over 300 demos and speaking with hundreds of investors at the PE firm, he saw that while companies were desperate for the benefits of AI, they were stuck in "manual nightmares."

He realized that AI wasn't a separate magic fix, but rather, it worked hand-in-hand with the very infrastructure he was building. This became the core mission of aidatalyst: you cannot have effective AI without a unified data foundation. The businesses truly winning were those that understood that AI is only as powerful as the data it sits on.

"You can build a chatbot in an afternoon, but if it isn't connected to your database, it doesn't know who your customer is," Matt says. "It doesn’t know if they are a recurring member or a one-time customer. The data informs the AI. It gives the tool the 'brain' and the history it needs to be effective rather than you having to look that person up manually every single time."

By delivering Data Intelligence through Consolidated Enterprise Reporting, aidatalyst combines these disparate systems so the AI actually has the "intelligence" it needs to drive the business forward. It’s a dual approach: cleaning the data to create the "brain," then applying AI to act on it.

A Forward-Looking Vision: From Reactive to Proactive

The ultimate goal of this work is to stop the cycle of "looking in the rearview mirror." Most traditional reporting tells you what happened 30 days ago, which is often too late to take meaningful action. Matt’s vision is to turn that data into a forward-looking tool.

"A lot of companies are reactive. They look at a bad quarter and try to fix it 90 days too late," Matt says. "If I can give you daily reports instead of monthly ones, you don't have to have a bad month. You might have a bad day, but you’ll see it instantly and make the change by Tuesday. That speed of insight is what changes the trajectory of a business."

“If I can give you daily reports instead of monthly ones, you don’t have to have a bad month. You just have a bad day.” — Matt Johl

This isn't just about cleaner charts; it’s about having the confidence to make big moves. By offloading the 'manual nightmare' of data entry to AI-driven systems, leaders can stop looking backward. Instead, they start seeing around corners and gain the headspace to focus on high-level strategy and acquisitions.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

This realization required a new level of discipline to actually deliver results. Matt knew that the speed of the industry meant that today’s solution could be obsolete by tomorrow.

"Technology has changed more in the last three years than in the previous ten," Matt says. "But I noticed that while everyone was talking about the hype, few were actually getting results.”

To ensure his clients don't fall behind, Matt has turned his builder mentality toward constant research. Capturing the AI opportunity isn't a one-time event. Tt requires staying on top of a landscape that shifts weekly to ensure companies are using the right tools for the right jobs. "Every day, every week, every month, there's new tools, new models, and new capabilities coming out. You look at ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and you have to look at how often these new capabilities are coming out and stay on top of them."

Moving the Needle from Zero to 50

By staying ahead of the curve, Matt helps clients avoid the perfection or bust mentality. Instead of chasing one-off fixes, he focuses on incremental, high-impact automation that compounds into long-term operational strength.

"If I can take a task that takes you 10 hours a week and get it down to five, that’s a massive win," Matt says. "If a CEO or an HR lead can reallocate those five hours to high-priority strategy instead of manual data entry, the ROI is exponential."

The Core Mission

Ultimately, aidatalyst is the manifestation of Matt’s lifelong curiosity and his passion for efficiency. By staying on the cutting edge of new tools, he ensures his clients are always using the most effective technology for their specific needs.

"I just love helping people solve problems," he says. "My job is to stay on top of those capabilities so my clients don't have to. I want to help them use this technology to improve their decision-making and manual processes so they can get back to the work they actually care about."