AI Broke the
Data Stack
The data world is melting, mutating, and morphing into something entirely new. Hear from the people with the front-row seats to this transformation as they debate their wildly different predictions about what happens next.
AI broke the data stack. Now what?
In just the last year, we've watched cloud and BI platforms promise "AI analysts", semantic layers become AI infrastructure, every cloud vendor suddenly becoming "open", and mergers nobody could have predicted (Fivetran and dbt, anyone?).
The Great Data Debate is the space where those contradictions collide. We're giving the mic to the people with front-row seats to the transformation so they can debate:
1. Will AI Analysts Kill 70% of Dashboards in 2026?
Everyone is launching AI Analysts — BI copilots, chat-with-your-data tools, autonomous insight bots. But enterprises are asking: Is any of this real? Or are we repeating the chatbot hype cycle?
This debate exposes the messy reality: what works today, what breaks instantly, and what CDOs should prepare for as analytics shifts from dashboards to autonomous intelligence.
2. Was Palantir Right About Systems of Context?
For 15 years, the industry tried to build semantic layers — LookML, metrics layers, dbt SL, headless BI. And yet, semantic layers never fully delivered on their promise.
Meanwhile, Palantir quietly built something different: Ontologies and context graphs. Fast-forward to 2026, and every major enterprise AI initiative is now failing for the same reason: models don't have context.
Which brings us to the big question: Was Palantir right? Are ontologies, context graphs, and context engineering the only way to make AI work at enterprise scale? Or is the enterprise about to repeat another hype cycle?
Meet Great Data Debate Alumni
Bob Muglia
Former CEO
Tristan Handy
Founder and CEO
Benn Stancil
Co-Founder
Cindi Howson
Chief Data Strategist
Barr Moses
Co-Founder
Zhamak Dehghani
Founder & CTO
Teresa Tung
Cloud First Chief Technologist
Matt Turck
Managing Director
Bob Muglia
Former CEO
Tristan Handy
Founder and CEO
Benn Stancil
Co-Founder
Cindi Howson
Chief Data Strategist
Barr Moses
Co-Founder
Zhamak Dehghani
Founder & CTO
Teresa Tung
Cloud First Chief Technologist
Matt Turck
Managing Director
Bob Muglia
Former CEO
Tristan Handy
Founder and CEO
Benn Stancil
Co-Founder
Cindi Howson
Chief Data Strategist
Barr Moses
Co-Founder
Zhamak Dehghani
Founder & CTO
Teresa Tung
Cloud First Chief Technologist
Matt Turck
Managing Director
2026 Speakers Coming Soon
Register for Speaker Updates →Other past events from the great data debate
The State of Data Mesh
Watch the Great Data Debate to hear from data leaders who live, breathe, and weave data meshes and leave with practical insights into the world of the data mesh.
Future of the Modern Data Stack
Watch the founders of the modern data stack for an interactive discussion on the changing data ecosystem and what lies ahead.
Future of Metrics Layer and Metadata
Metrics layers have been all the rage in 2022! We decided to bring the two of the most prolific product thinkers in this space to learn about their views on all things metrics layer and metadata.
Rebundling vs Unbundling of the Data Stack
This question has been everywhere – Reddit discussions, Twitter debates, community slack groups, data newsletters.
