Ali Ghodsi, Databricks CEO, discusses Agentic AI, Databricks' journey, competition in the space and much more.

San Francisco

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi has highlighted the rapid transformation occurring in the database industry due to the rise of 'agentic' AI, where artificial intelligence agents are now responsible for creating the majority of new databases. Ghodsi noted that this shift is accelerating, with agent-created databases increasing from 30% to 80% within a year, and potentially reaching 99% soon. He believes this trend will disrupt longstanding database technologies and practices.

Ghodsi also discussed Databricks' recent innovations, including the launch of LakeBase and the acquisition of Neon, as well as the importance of evaluating AI agents' performance in enterprise settings. He described the current competition for AI talent as highly dynamic and confirmed that Databricks intends to go public, though no specific timeline was provided.

Databricks CEO: 'Agentic' AI era will disrupt the whole database industry

Deirdre Bosa is live at the conference and she just happens to have the CEO of Databricks. It's amazing how TV works out. I'm sitting right next to him. Amazing. Deirdre, take it away. I'm sitting right next to him. Ali Ghodsi, always a pleasure to sit down and talk with you. Before we dive into some of the announcements today, Disruptor 50, we just announced the list. You're number three. You were number five last year. Tell us a little bit about the journey because Databricks is a company that's a decade or more old, yet you are a darling in the AI world, seen as AI native. What did you get right early on? Well, I mean, we always knew that AI was going to be big. Actually, the field was called this esoteric name, machine learning. So one of the things we got right is like, let's not call it machine learning, let's call it AI. There was a lot of drama around that. But we thought it was going to happen faster and it was just kind of slow for a decade. And then the 2022 chat GPT moment, it just exploded. So I mean, we were kind of right and wrong about the timing simultaneously. And you guys were basically perfectly positioned because if data is the new oil, that's exactly what Databricks does. Let's talk a little bit about today. LakeBase was sort of, I thought it was really interesting. That makes data more useful for the AI era, but it also brings you onto the home turf of really big tech companies like Oracle and Microsoft and Amazon. What gives you the confidence that you can compete with these guys in their own backyard? Yeah, I mean, so basically this technology hasn't changed for 40 years. It's been basically the same. And you know, it's so locked in. Once you have your data there, you can't move it out. The really interesting thing that has happened is that now agents are creating databases. And this company, Neon, showed that 80% of their databases are actually created by agents, not by humans anymore. So, and last year that number was 30%. So in one year, there'll be probably 99% of the databases are created by agents. So we think this sort of agentic era is going to disrupt the whole database industry. Right, and this allows sort of the backend to utilize it better, the data for agents. And Neon, which you mentioned is a recent acquisition. You guys have been quite acquisitive. But let's talk about AI adoption, because we have actually seen it ramp up, particularly over the last year. No longer just experimental, but entrenched within companies. You were just on stage with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan. Where you sit though, what is a bottleneck perhaps that CEOs, CIOs, executives aren't talking enough about? Yeah, I would say this thing that we call evaluations or benchmarks. Like, it doesn't matter if the agent can crush it at programming contests or do math Olympiad really well, and it's smarter than us in math. We want it to do a specific job at the company. How do we know how it's doing? That's called evaluations or benchmarks. So that's what we focused on when we launched Agent Bricks. And it's a way to do agent learning, to teach these agents to actually evaluate themselves. If we can't evaluate them, how do we even know? We're not going to unleash them in the workforce and not know how they're doing. It could wreak havoc. So that's the main thing I would say. It's the biggest bottleneck. People don't know. They're flying blind. I don't know what my agents are doing. Right, and so that's how you basically get more growth, right, and more efficiency. You know, I want to talk a little bit about the workforce because we've talked about that today. You've got tech giants like Google and Meta. They're realigning all around AI. What's the Databricks and startup advantage when you're competing in these kinds of talent wars, which I think seems to have heated up this year, but you tell me. Yeah, I mean, it's very dynamic, you know, and it happens quickly. We'll see like, you know, a really popular company, there's like drama within it, and then everybody's like exodus of all the AI researchers just leaving. And we just try to, in those times, pick the best that we can. There's been multiple of these now happening. I mean, I'm not going to name any particular ones, but we'll see that, you know, company that has everything, and then suddenly like, you know, there's lots of people leaving, and then they go to another one, and then back and forth. So like, it's just this movement is crazy. I have not seen it in the last 15 years. But, you know, suddenly like, okay, everybody wants to leave this company. Now suddenly everyone wants to join that one, and back and forth, and so on. So it's happening quickly, and it's fierce. One really quick question, I'm going to sneak in. I've asked you a million times before about an IPO, but it feels like the window is opening, and everyone is chasing AI. How are you thinking about Databricks timing? Yeah, I'll say like Andrew, it's, we're definitely going public. The question is just when, it's not an if. And no clues there? No, I mean, Jamie Dimon was just on stage and said, we need more American companies to go public. So he's probably right. It will happen, but I don't have a specific date for you right now.

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