Highlights from Databricks' Data + AI World Tour in Chicago - Generation AI Takes Center Stage
Databricks hosted their Data + AI World Tour event in Chicago on October 3rd, and with all of the hype around AI, Generative AI and Large Language Models, this was the perfect place to get a feel for what is going on.
To start with, it was a well attended event, in fact it was a sold out event, and I understand that similar events in other cities around the world were also sold out.
The theme for the show was Generation AI, a clever play on Gen AI, but certainly this is a kind of generational change we are seeing. Databricks is coming off a hot streak, with their last raise valuing them at $43 Billion
Ari Kaplan, Databricks' Lead Evangelist, was there to deliver a keynote address, "Welcome to Generation AI." If you aren't familiar with Ari Kaplan, he is considered to be the "Real Moneyball Guy". Ari regaled us with stories from his time in Chicago sports which went over well with the local crowd.
The breakout sessions ranged from everything from monetizing data to Lakehouse AI deep dives, but the sessions that seamed to be on everyones list were the LLM ones. They had LLMOps, Next Generation Customer Experiences and Elevating Retail with Large Language Models, but it was a topic that came up in almost every session.
There was a lot of emphasis on RAG Resource Augmented Generation coupled with LLMs which allows companies to integrate their own data sources into LLM responses.
There were some company breakout sessions with Tredence, Q-Lick <Insert Correction> I stand corrected, so what do they do? <Insert Clip> and then there was Sigma.
Some of the other vendors were there, Immuta, Tableau, Prophesy, SAP, Slalom, Data iku, and Google
It was great to catch up with old friends and make some new ones, and there is a lot to learn about the state of Generation AI
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