SQL Server is changing. AI is changing how we work with data. I explore both. Here you will find: 🛢️ SQL Server performance tips ⚡ Query tuning and troubleshooting 🤖 AI ideas for DBAs and data professionals Real examples. Real scripts. No fluff. Follow if you enjoy practical database learning.

I am very happy to share that my new book is now published: AI: Nobody’s in There But we’re still in here This book is not about AI hype. It is not about fear either. It is about something much more personal: what it actually feels like to live and work beside AI. Over the last few years, I have seen AI enter almost every conversation. In technology, business, education, writing, leadership, consulting, and even casual office discussions, AI is now everywhere. But I felt one important thing was missing. We keep talking about tools, models, prompts, automation, productivity, and disruption. But we do not talk enough about judgment. We do not talk enough about learning. We do not talk enough about what happens to people when work suddenly becomes faster, easier, stranger, and sometimes more confusing. That is why I wrote this book. AI: Nobody’s in There is a collection of 30 short essays. Each essay is written to be read in a few minutes, but hopefully remembered for much longer. Some essays are serious. Some are uncomfortable. Some are funny because, let’s be honest, AI has made all of us look very smart and very foolish on the same day. The book explores questions like: What happens when AI gives us answers faster than we can verify them? What happens when “good” becomes free, and taste becomes the real skill? What happens to juniors when the messy beginner work disappears? What happens to experts when their experience becomes more important, but less visible? What happens when we stop asking AI for answers and start using it as an opponent? And perhaps the biggest question: Who are we when the work takes seconds? This book is my attempt to write honestly about AI without worshipping it and without declaring the end of the world every Tuesday morning. AI is powerful, useful, flawed, confident, strange, and sometimes hilarious. But nobody is inside it. That means the responsibility is still ours. Our judgment matters. Our taste matters. Our verification matters. Our ability to learn still matters. Our caring still matters. The machine can produce words, code, images, summaries, plans, and answers. But it cannot care whether the answer is right. That part is still human. This book is for people who are using AI, managing teams using AI, teaching with AI, learning with AI, building with AI, or simply trying to understand what this new work life is becoming. The book is available on Amazon in Kindle, audiobook, and paperback formats: lnkd.in/dTWQuPhc lnkd.in/d8jDiPVW Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me, challenged my thinking, shared feedback, and continued reading my work over the years. Writing this book reminded me of one simple truth: AI may change how we work. But it should not make us stop thinking. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #Writing #BookLaunch

I almost did not publish this book. For twenty-five years, my job was to make slow things fast. Databases, queries, performance. I built a quiet pride on being good at it. I never imagined a fast thing would be the one to break my heart a little. It started on an ordinary afternoon, watching a machine do in four seconds something that used to take me half a day. I waited to feel amazed. Instead, something in my chest went quiet. It was grief. Not for the task. For the part of me that the task used to need. So I started writing, just to understand it. Thirty essays later, my new book is out: AI: Nobody's in There. It is not about prompts or tools. It is about the human part no machine can do for you: judgment, taste, verification, and the responsibility to decide whether the work deserves to exist. The machine can answer. It cannot care. That part never left. It stayed with us. Nobody's in there. But we're still in here. The book is on Amazon now (Kindle, audiobook, paperback). And if you would rather not buy it, no worries at all: all 30 essays are free to read on my blog. 📕 amazon.com/dp/B0H4T6W21S 📖 pinaldave.com/blog/ #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #Writing #BookLaunch

join this is going to be super FUN!

We talk about AI with a lot of familiar phrases. "We need to be an AI-first company." "It is not about the AI, it is about the data." "AI will augment, not replace, human workers." "Every company is an AI company now." These lines show up in strategy decks, product meetings, investor updates, and hallway conversations. Some are useful. Some are vague. Some are doing a lot of work to make uncertainty sound confident. I turned 10 common AI cliches into a set of office comedy illustrations, each one staged as a different genre scene: space opera, spy thriller, courtroom drama, western frontier, fantasy quest, and more. The goal was simple: make the language feel visible. AI is changing real work, but the words we use to explain it matter too. Clear language helps teams make better decisions. Cliches can make complicated shifts feel easier, but they can also hide what is actually changing. Which AI phrase do you hear most often at work? blog.sqlauthority.com/2026/0… #AI #WorkplaceAI #ArtificialIntelligence #BusinessStrategy #FutureOfWork #Illustration

A bit hard to read essay - your thoughts are welcome. Enterprise AI’s Hidden Problem Is Organizational Amnesia The first time an enterprise AI system gives a wrong answer, people usually blame the model. Let us talk Enterprise AI’s Hidden Problem Is Organizational Amnesia in detail. AI does not fail only when it forgets. It also fails when the company remembers badly. blog.sqlauthority.com/2026/0…

This is a hard-to-read essay, so no need to read it if you find it difficult. Leave it there. It is not a quick AI hype post. It is about a deeper enterprise problem: companies do not just struggle with AI because models fail. They struggle because their own memory is scattered across documents, dashboards, people, permissions, old rules, and hidden exceptions. A model can sound confident, but without trusted context it is still only a polished guess. If you read it, leave a comment. If you do not read it, that is perfectly fine too. Some essays are for the few people who enjoy enterprise pain with coffee. blog.sqlauthority.com/2026/0…

The cartoon says it better than a long presentation. AI is not walking into your office, taking your badge, and sitting in your chair. The real change is quieter. Someone on your team is already using AI to write faster, summarize better, learn quicker, analyze deeper, and move from idea to execution before the second coffee. That is the real shift. AI may not take your job. But someone using AI well may become much harder to ignore. The real risk is not AI. The real risk is ignoring it. #AI #ChatGPT #FutureOfWork #Productivity #CareerGrowth #Technology #Workplace

A 16-year-old asked the question every technologist should fear: “Why does every app feel temporary?” AI can build disposable apps in seconds. But are we also learning to treat patience, presence, and people as disposable? blog.sqlauthority.com/2026/0… #AI #GenAI #DigitalWellbeing

Tomorrow at **Techorama Belgium**: SQL Server Performance Survival Kit for the AI Era Performance tuning. Real-world troubleshooting. AI-era thinking. Miss this tomorrow, and you may miss the workshop everyone talks about. techorama.be/schedule/worksh… #SQLServer #Techorama #AI #PerformanceTuning

Final Call! If you have signed up for the Techorama and have yet not decided which workshop to attend - here is the one I am attending. techorama.be/schedule/worksh… Lots of fun and learn moments promised! @TechoramaBE

Every slow query leaves clues. Sometimes it is blocking. Sometimes it is high CPU. Sometimes it is wait stats quietly waving from the corner. Sometimes it is a poor execution plan doing “creative work” in production. 🙂 That is why performance tuning is not just about fixing one query. It is about following the evidence, reading the plan, asking better questions, and understanding what SQL Server is really trying to do. I am excited to present: SQL Server Performance Survival Kit for the AI Era May 11 Workshop • Techorama Belgium In this workshop, we will explore practical ways to identify performance problems, analyze execution plans, understand wait stats, and use AI-driven insights without losing the human judgment that real production systems still need. Follow the clues. Fix the performance. See you at Techorama Belgium. #SQLServer #PerformanceTuning #QueryTuning #ExecutionPlans #WaitStats #AI #DatabasePerformance #Techorama #PinalDave

This is going to be super fun!

Dear @heydigit good job. Your support team is very quick and responsive on email.

PRESS START TO SURVIVE 🎮 Slow queries. Blocking. Deadlocks. High CPU. Wait stats. Bad plans. Every SQL Server professional has faced this game before. The only difference is that in production, there is no reset button. 😄 That is exactly why I am excited for my workshop: SQL Server Performance Survival Kit for the AI Era - May 11 Workshop • @TechoramaBE Belgium We will talk about real-world SQL Server performance problems, practical tuning methods, execution plans, Query Store, troubleshooting patterns, and how AI can help us work faster without replacing the experience that comes from years in the field. AI can assist. Good judgment still wins the game. Looking forward to seeing many of you there. techorama.be/schedule/worksh… #SQLServer #PerformanceTuning #DatabasePerformance #AI #DBA #Techorama #TechoramaBelgium

The royal court is ready. 👑 I am excited to be at @TechoramaBE Belgium on May 11 for my full-day workshop: SQL Server Performance Survival Kit for the AI Era This one is not about theory or pretty slides. It is about the work many of us face every day: slow queries, bad execution plans, missing indexes, confusing waits, blocking, deadlocks, high CPU, and that magical moment when someone says, “Can you just quickly check the database?” We will make it practical, hands-on, and real-world. The AI era is here, but performance tuning still needs human judgment, patience, and experience. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Belgium. techorama.be/schedule/worksh… #SQLServer #PerformanceTuning #Database #AI #Techorama #DataPlatform

It is great to see @OpenAI supporting many more currencies for subscriptions. This is a helpful and thoughtful step for users around the world. One small suggestion: changing the billing currency still seems to require canceling the current subscription and subscribing again. Maybe there is a simpler way I missed, but it would be wonderful if this could become a smoother experience. Would love your thoughts, @sama.

No Comments: JOIN techorama.be/schedule/worksh… Techorama

Sometimes the best way to explain a serious workshop is with crayons, scribbles, and pure childhood confidence. 🎨 On May 11, I’ll be at @TechoramaBE Belgium with: SQL Server Performance Survival Kit for the AI Era The topic is serious: SQL Server performance, execution plans, Query Store, tuning, troubleshooting, and what changes when AI enters the room. A joyful reminder that learning can still be fun. See you there. #Techorama #SQLServer #SQLAuthority #DatabasePerformance #QueryStore #AI #DataEngineering

On May 11, I’ll be at @TechoramaBE Belgium with my workshop: SQL Server Performance Survival Kit for the AI Era We’ll talk about the performance problems that still hurt in real systems, including slow queries, execution plans, indexing mistakes, wait stats, Query Store, and the new pressure AI is bringing into the database world. AI can help. But when performance breaks, experience still matters. No dancing backup servers planned. Probably. #Techorama #SQLServer #SQLAuthority #DatabasePerformance #QueryStore #AI #DataEngineering