Asking a few questions and dumping data at the end isn’t AI onboarding. It’s lazy. If AI doesn’t actively personalize the product and get users to value faster, it actually hurts trust. Your users notice and they expect more.

In this season premiere of The Data Chief podcast, host Cindi Howson sits down with three industry leaders to unpack what’s next for AI, and the concrete moves data and AI leaders need to make in 2026—many of which are detailed in ThoughtSpot’s Top Data & AI Trends of 2026 ebook. Get ready for a deep dive into: Consider this your field guide to navigating AI in 2026.

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Learn how Fivetran activates data and delivers it into business applications for analytics, insights, and customer segmentation.

Discover how Qlik and Snowflake Cortex AI-SQL are revolutionizing data enrichment and analytics accessibility. This introductory video explores how SQL-savvy data engineers can invoke powerful AI functionality at scale—without complex data science programming—using Snowflake's SQL wrapper for AI capabilities. Learn how Qlik operationalizes Cortex AI-SQL across your entire data pipeline, from enriching data in-flight through Qlik Talend Cloud to enabling business users to interact with AI-powered insights through Qlik Sense analytics.

See Snowflake Cortex AI-SQL in action with comprehensive demonstrations across the entire analytics lifecycle. This deep-dive video showcases real-world implementations including sentiment analysis on healthcare survey data, emotional classification using the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions, and sophisticated prompt engineering for actionable business recommendations. Watch how Qlik operationalizes these AI capabilities within data pipelines, storing enriched insights as structured data that any user can access—no SQL or data science expertise required.

Ready to implement Snowflake Cortex AI-SQL in your Qlik environment? This technical walkthrough provides step-by-step guidance for building AI-powered analytics applications using two proven architectural approaches. Learn how to leverage Qlik's partial reload functionality for user-triggered AI queries, and discover the advanced analytics connector method for creating fully responsive, selection-aware AI interactions. Master the techniques for passing aggregated data alongside questions to ensure security compliance, honor role-based access controls, and maintain multiple versions of truth across different departments.