The world is changing, it’s pretty clear by this point. With the advent of generative AI, we are witnessing the boundaries constantly being pushed on what is possible for a machine to understand and do, simply by using words.

However, while this revolution is happening, our dear old friend SQL has officially celebrated its 50th birthday, proving itself once more as a survivor in the world of data. So what is it going to be? Who will control the future of data? Words or SQL?

Let’s take a journey into the past, present and future of querying data. We will talk about how SQL became so popular and how it survived for so long . We will talk about the LLM revolution, the challenges of leveraging AI to transition from SQL to NLQ and the technologies that might get us closer there such as RAG, Semantic Layers and Knowledge Graphs. Lastly we will peek into the crystal ball and try to figure out what the future might bring and how it might change the way we see modern data platforms.