Semantic layers and context for AI analysts
The panel explores why semantic layers alone aren't enough and what a broader "context layer" needs to look like for AI analysts to actually work.
Barry McCardel
Co-founder & CEO, Hex
Barry represents the future-first view of analytics. At Hex, he’s rebuilding BI for a world where AI is the default — not an add-on. He questions whether dashboards deserve to survive at all, and what analytics should look like when humans and AI collaborate in real time.
Chris Child
VP of Product Management, Snowflake
Chris brings the perspective of building the AI analyst for everyone’s favorite data cloud. As VP of Product at Snowflake, he’s responsible for making AI analytics work where the data actually lives, with initiatives like Snowflake Intelligence, Cortex, and Open Semantic Interchange.
Cindi Howson
Chief Data & AI Strategy Officer, ThoughtSpot
Cindi Howson has lived through every era of BI—and helped define most of them. From leading Gartner’s BI Magic Quadrants to advising global enterprises at ThoughtSpot, she brings a rare, long-range view of how BI actually evolves.
Tony Gentilcore
Co-founder, Glean
Tony Gentilcore is Co-founder and Product Engineering Lead at Glean. With 20+ years building high-performance products, he spent a decade at Google modernizing Search and later led the Chrome Speed Team, shaping how data is accessed and delivered at scale.
Shubham Bhargav
Product & Engineering, Atlan
Shubham is in the trenches building talk-to-data systems with enterprises today. He brings real-world lessons from attempting to operationalize AI analysts — including where they succeed, where they hallucinate, and why context is the limiting factor.