AI doesn’t work without the right data layer. And that’s why Lakebase is turning heads this year. I had a blast chatting with Holly Smith and Nick Karpov from Databricks at the Data + AI Summit, where we dug into some of the most exciting (and most technical) announcements from this year — especially Lakebase.

We unpacked why Lakebase is such a big deal:

• It’s not just another feature — it’s about making the database layer finally work for AI.

• Traditional databases weren’t built for the scale, speed, or flexibility that production AI agents demand — Lakebase is changing that.

• We also talked about the Neon acquisition — and why it’s generating so much buzz in the data community.

From a data engineer’s lens, the big question is always: Does this make my job easier?

Lakebase, combined with AI-native platform features, is a big step toward faster, cleaner AI project delivery.

Holly and Nick also gave me a look at what’s coming with Spark Declarative Pipelines — bridging declarative simplicity with real developer control.

Big thanks to both for the great chat.

#data #ai #DataAISummit #databricks #theravitshow