Newsletter: Your December Dose of Data & AI

Ready to be part of something extraordinary? Data Council 2025 is coming back to The Bay, and trust us – you won't want to miss this! Next year will be our biggest Data Council yet with real-life insights, breakthrough discussions and new connections that could shape your next big move.

Next year’s conference spans the full spectrum of modern data and AI, with dedicated tracks covering:

Data Engineering & Infrastructure
AI Engineering
Data Science & Algos
Foundation Models
Analytics & BI
MLOps & Platforms
GenAI Applications
Databases
AI & Data Culture

Early-bird tickets are live, but they won't stay that way for long. Last year's conference sold out in record time, so don’t just mark your calendar – secure your spot. The future of data is calling.

Cheers,
Team Data Council 🧠💡

Featured OSS Project: LlamaIndex

llamaindex

LlamaIndex is a data framework that connects custom data with large language models for building RAG applications with the goal of helping companies use AI to intelligently search and understand their own data and documents. The framework provides comprehensive tooling across data ingestion, indexing, querying, and evaluation workflows, supporting both simple question-answering systems and complex cognitive architectures, with capabilities for diverse data handling, flexible retrieval, and structured outputs.

Notable Features:

Data Ingestion: Multi-format connectors, automated chunking, metadata extraction, 50+ data loaders for all source types
Retrieval: Hybrid search combining dense/sparse vectors, reranking, and customizable relevance metrics
Output Generation: Structured responses with JSON/SQL parsing, templating, and programmable synthesis
Query Engine: Auto-routing, recursive summarization, sub-question decomposition with caching
Integrations: Native support for Pinecone, Weaviate, ChromaDB, OpenAI, Cohere, and custom stores

Click here to learn more about LlamaIndex.

Monthly Reads - The Latest in Data

GraphRAG: Microsoft’s Open-Source Solution for Enhanced Document Understanding
Towards AI
The Semantic Layer Movement: The Rise & Current State
Modern Data 101
How to Improve LLM Safety and Reliability
Arize AI
Beyond LLMs: Compound Systems, Agents, and Whole AI Products
The Technomist
How to Extract Analytics from Bluesky, the New Open Social Network
MotherDuck
PyIceberg: Current State and Roadmap
Ju Data Engineering Newsletter
Promptim: An Experimental Library for Prompt Optimization
LangChain
Beyond the Cloud: Distributed AI and On-Device Intelligence
Alconomics
Context-Aided Forecasting: Enhancing Forecasting with Textual Data
Towards Data Science
Shift Left: Headless Data Architecture, Part 2
Confluent

Zero Prime Podcast

E26: Balancing Open Source and Business with Spencer Kimball (Cockroach Labs)

In this new episode of the 0P podcast, we welcome back Spencer Kimball, co-founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs, to discuss the evolving landscape of software licensing in the cloud era. Spencer shares insights on how companies are innovating with new licensing models to bridge the gap between open source ideals and sustainable business growth.

Drawing from his experience leading Cockroach Labs, a distributed database company, he offers a unique perspective on finding equilibrium between community collaboration and commercial success.

🔊 Listen to the episode here