Data + AI Summit 2025
This year I got to attend Databricks DATA + AI Summit 2025 in San Francisco and it was special as I got to attend with jpdiaz.dev as part of the Databricks MVP program: Databricks way of thanking and recognizing professionals who go above and beyond to uplift the data and AI community around the world.
In this article I will tell you some of the reasons why I enjoyed assisting this summit and why you should get interested and involved with it from now on.I have been closely following Databricks technology, virtually attending the Summit and organizing several Apache Spark meetups in Bogotá and in México City for almost a decade. Why? To stay tuned with this incredible technology that is conquering the DATA + AI landscape world wide.
Globally the interest in this technology started exploding back in 2014 since Apache Spark won the battle on data speed processing with Apache Hadoop in Daytona Gray Sort 100TB Benchmark. You can see the trend in the following Google Trends charts.
Engineering (Inner Sourcing vs Open Sourcing)
Databricks engineers are the original creators and have led the development not only of Apache Spark but also some of the world’s most popular open source data technologies such as Delta Lake, MLFlow, Spark, Redash, DBRX, Unity Catalog, Iceberg, Neon and many other OSS / research projects.
OSS Projects Logos
These highly technical geniuses didn’t start working having revenue in mind. They were aiming to solve tough problems for the DATA + AI community and this led them to create great solutions. Now they are building a profitable company but keeping in their DNA this end user obsession.
They are combining inner sourcing software development (led inside Databricks) with open sourcing software development (led by the community). This has led them to create powerful productivity tools for Data Engineers, Data Scientists and today for ANYONE, with the usage of GenAI. Boosting collaboration and allowing people to solve tough problems faster.
Assisting as a 2025 Databricks MVP
As I shared before I assisted as a Databricks MVP. Honestly, being part of this group is a truly special opportunity—mainly because being surrounded by such high-caliber professionals pushes you to become much better. It drives you to learn about cutting-edge and exciting technologies that, when applied to today’s businesses, can help you optimize operations tenfold or even double your sales.
MVP’s wall at the EXPO
For the Keynote, we had a special section reserved for MVPs. The treatment was genuinely different. And it’s no surprise—these people are well-known and influential in the industry. They’re professionals who stand out beyond their day jobs and have clearly invested a significant amount of time solving relevant problems of the community and helping others getting proficient with the platform. I’ve done my homework during past five years and past year has been incredibly intense with weekly meetups and a ton of pre-work for each session. From now on I will focus on letting people know better the new features announced.
Databricks MVP’s 2025 reunited in San Francisco before Day one Keynote
Platform new features announced during 2025 keynote
During the June 11th keynote, there were several very interesting announcements. I’d like to highlight the following five:
- Education: Databricks announced a 100 MM USD investment to launch their free version. Game changer for those who are teaching this technologies all around the globe. Great news for Bogotá and in México City Apache Spark community as this release will help us during our weekly training sessions.
- Frontend: Databricks is finally making a serious move toward non-technical users by enabling the creation of end-user applications with Databricks Apps, accelerating the Time To Market for AI solutions intended for business users. This disrupts the industry and internal structures of many organizations by removing the dependency of D&A teams on IT departments to build robust user-facing applications.
- Backend: Databricks is also aiming to manage the backend of modern AI solutions through managed postgres. They recently aqcuired Neon and included their technology as afeature on the platform they call Lakebase.
- AI Agents: Databricks is betting on the scalability of AI agents within its platform with Agent Bricks, addressing the maket demand for this kind of solutions and making it not only easier to build this powerfull automation tools, but robust and integrated within the same DATA platform.
- AI Engineering: Databricks has always believed in and supported Open Source, currently they are incorporating specific solutions for the world of AI Engineering within MLflow 3.0.
During the June 12th keynote, there were several very interesting announcements. I’d like to highlight the following:
- Databricks ONE: A new User Interface designed for business users to interact with the platform with lesser friction so they can benefit from Data Intelligence increasing their impact in their organizations. With Databricks One, business users can view and interact with AI/BI Dashboards, ask questions of AI/BI Genie, and access custom Databricks Apps.
- Migrations: Tackling one of the key challenges for companies willing to use this cloud based solution they built Lakebridge a free tool designed to automate the migration from legacy data warehouses to Databricks.
- Orchestration and Ingestion for ETL’s with Lakeflow competing with well known industry solutions such as Airflow but adding the ingestion capability.
- No code ETLs with Lakeflow designer competing with well known industry solutions such as Datafactory. And taking away the entry bareers for many Data Engineers to start using the platform. Now almost every role will be able to interact and build their pipelines.
- Secure Data Sharing within organizations: Databricks announced enhancements on its Data Sharing capabilities. Closing the gap on secure Data Sharing with Clean Rooms new features such as Privacy-centric identity resolution, support for multi-party collaborations, and advanced controls over approvals. Delta Sharing to Iceberg Clients, Delta Sharing Network Gateway, and Delta Sharing with ABAC.
As you can imagine these are just a few of the thousands of topics covered during the 2025 Summit. Much more was announced during the Keynotes and way more during the onsite conferences. And note the conference has been out there for the past 10 years. If you want to lead inside your organization you need to keep up to date. Join our Weekly virtual meetups within Bogotá and in México City. There are really talented professionals joining those sessions.
If you’re a business owner, it’s highly likely that you’ll need support to adopt these technologies and drive business value. Feel free to contact me—I’d be happy to guide you on this journey.
Thanks for reading.
