It's About Data

This is a continuation of our conversation with Dipti Borkar from episode 81. We discuss Microsoft Fabric IQ as a tool for managing meaning in data, the problem of data interop, and the rapidly evolving role of data engineers. Episode 81:https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/K7ACFfYNq4b

This is a continuation of our discussion in episode 82. Kevin explains that AI agents are now a "fox in charge of the hen house," but this actually portends great things in the longstanding quest for data quality. Harnessing Unstructured Data for AI Innovation (BARC Study):https://barc.com/research/harnessing-unstructured-data-for-ai-innovation/Episode 82, where we introduce the BARC stu...

Kevin Petrie and Merv Adrian (BARC) join us to discuss a recent study:"Harnessing Unstructured Data for AI Innovation: Problems, Practices, and Principles for Success"This episode is part of a two part series. In the first part, we discuss the findings of the study. The study is available here:https://barc.com/research/harnessing-unstructured-data-for-ai-innovation/

Dipti Borkar joins us to discuss how Microsoft is addressing the growing importance of open data through Fabric. We also talk about solving for agentic analytics support, and the evolution of data roles and responsibilities.

In episode 80, Andy Pernsteiner (field CTO VAST Data) joins us to discuss how VAST has evolved from a storage layer to application backend services, data management and AI infrastructure. The VAST Cosmos Community:https://community.vastdata.com/

Tony reports from Databricks Data + AI Summit 2026. Lakehouse/RT, LTAP, Genie One, Omnigent, Unity AI Gateway, and more.

Lisa Cao (Databricks) joins us to discuss major new features in Apache Spark 4.1, and the continuing evolution of the platform to meet new challenges and serve an expanding user base.

We interview Florian Douetteau, CEO and cofounder of Dataiku, about why data is the fuel for AI and how automation can solve the problem of "Shadow Data Products."

Nikita Shamgunov (Databricks) argues that all stateful systems in the future will need to support forking and version control to allow agents to make mistakes. Also on the agenda: wrangling spaghetti data, managing schema drift, and how the Lakebase architecture can outperform dedicated hardware. #artificialintelligence #aiagents #database

Juan Sequeda joins Tony to go over the latest announcements and their broader implications for the industry. CoCo, CoWork, Horizon Context, data sharing, context wars, and more.#artificialintelligence #aiagents

Sailesh Krishnamurthy joins us to discuss Google Cloud Spanner Omni, an on-prem option for Google's famous ultra-scalable transactional database. We discuss the engineering challenges of moving to customer hardware, and the broad problem of data sovereignty.

Nikita joins us to talk about an idea that he couldn't let go: separating compute and storage in an OLTP database. He cofounded Neon to pursue this technology, which is now the engine behind Lakebase.#database #dataanalytics #agenticai

Suresh Srinivas (CEO Collate getcollate.io ) joins us to discuss his journey from big data to metadata.

Much digital ink has been spilt on the death of the modern data stack. Amit Sharma (CEO CData Software ) joins us to discuss a vision for collapsing the modern data stack to better support AI applications.

Dr. Fern Halper joins us to discuss her recently published book. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781394390663

Tony returns from SAP Sapphire 2026 to report on "the most consequential Sapphire of Christian Klein's reign."

Winfried Etzel joins us to discuss the hard, practical problems of data governance, made more complicated by AI as data consumer and generator. This episode was recorded at Data Day Texas 2026. https://winfriedadalbertetzel.substack.com/

Tony records from Boston to bring us the latest updates from  @IBM  Think 2026.#artificialintelligence #bigblue

We're releasing this continuation of Ep 53 with Miran Badzak to coincide with IBM Think 2026. What does it mean for a database to be autonomous? What is the future for DBAs? What is the outlook for text-to-SQL?The other half of this conversation: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/pIdV72QcW2b #database #agenticai

We chat with Angie Jones (VP Developer Experience,  @AgenticAI-Foundation  ) and Jim Zemlin (CEO of  @LinuxfoundationOrg  ) at MCP Dev Summit about what's next for agentic AI and the foundation.#agenticai #mcp

Tony and Sanjeev record from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. We discuss the integrated stack from hardware to agents, cloud interconnect data collaboration and TPUs.#cloudcomputing #artificialintelligence

We're joined by guests Thais Cooke and Jenna Jordan to discuss the themes of their respective talks at Data Day Texas 2026: human connection, library science, provenance and community.#artificialintelligence #libraryscience #dataanalytics

Yitzhak Kesselman (Corporate Vice President  @Microsoft  ) joins us to discuss Microsoft Fabric IQ and the combination of two approaches to AI: traditional "signals" machine learning and LLM based reasoning.#dataanalytics #artificialintelligence #machinelearning

MCP comes to the big city! Andrew Brust joins us to report on MCP Dev Summit in New York City. How can MCP go from MVP to the enterprise? Are enterprises ready for MCP?https://events.linuxfoundation.org/mcp-dev-summit-north-america/Kierra Dotson's talk:https://mcpdevsummitna26.sched.com/event/2Hbg3/protocol-evolution-adapting-the-model-context-protocol-for-slms-and-the-edge-kierra-dotson-further#m...

Joe Reis joins the show to talk about his upcoming data modeling book, GTA 6, and AI's impact on data engineering. Joe's Substack on data modeling:https://practicaldatamodeling.substack.com/Fundamentals of Data Engineering:https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-data/9781098108298/#aitools #aicoding #dataengineering