MCP are poised to be the connective tissue between large‑language models and the data they need. Despite this, many projects still stall at the prototype stage. This talk distills what actually works in production, what still breaks, and why. We’ll look at the real environments where MCP is thriving, the hurdles teams hit when they move to productize it. Finally, we’ll share a view of the road ahead as context becomes a first‑class product surface.

In the age of agentic AI, competitive advantage lies not only in AI models, but in the quality of the data agents reason on and the agility of the tools that feed them. To fully realize the ROI of agentic AI, organizations need a platform that enables high-quality data pipelines and provides scalable, enterprise-grade tools. In this session, discover how a unified platform for integration, data management, MCP server management, API management, and agent orchestration can help you to bring cohesion and control to how data and agents are used across your organization.

Espresso AI uses two main techniques to run Snowflake workloads faster and cheaper: ML-based job scheduling and LLM-based query optimization. This talk will dive into the details behind both approaches.

In an era where AI is rapidly transforming industries, leveraging AI in a responsible, compliant and sustainable way is more crucial than ever. Join us for an insightful session on ISO 42001, the new standard for AI compliance. James Lupton, Cynozure's CTO, will demystify the complexities of AI governance, sharing practical steps and help you decide whether ISO 42001 is right for your organisation. In this 30 minute session, James will dive into:

What ISO 42001 covers and why it matters for your AI practices

How you can tailor the standard to your needs

Practical strategies for getting started with the standard in your organisation

The John Lewis Partnership is building the foundation for AI success by creating a centralized, self-service data hub powered by Collibra. Through a collaborative governance framework, John Lewis Partnership is delivering trusted data products at scale, enabling faster, more confident decisions and strengthening oversight of AI initiatives.

In this session, you’ll learn:

• How JLP is overcoming fragmented, unreliable data with a single source of truth

• What drove adoption and business alignment for Collibra

• How trusted data products are accelerating AI readiness and governance

O'Reilly Author and Chief Evangelist, PhD Ole Olesen-Bagneux takes a deep dive into the challenges of metadata management in enterprises, and the great potential metadata represents for Artificial Intelligence. 

The reality of metadata management is – crucially – not properly addressed in most tech literature, as well as in the guidance from technology vendors. This is not a result of suspicious intentions, but a natural outcome of what is sought communicated: How technology works. 

However, this leaves out the enterprise context, and accordingly implementations of technologies suffer. For metadata, this is a problem that limits the potential and interplay of the many metadata repositories normally found in an enterprise. 

A great perspective unfolds if we consider metadata repositories more holistically as a stack, giving improved perception of what the IT landscape of an enterprise is truly like. 

Furthermore, this approach solidifies how to craft new metamodels in knowledge graphs, because they meticulously consider the existing mappings of the IT landscape. 

This is the key to unparalleled solid context for Artificial intelligence. 

Discover:

*The reality of metadata management in enterprises

* Agentic AI for the enterprise

* Ontologies for Model Context Protocol (MCP)

DataOps, and more recently, Data Products have still only been around for a relatively short period of time. 

However, the collective experience of those who have been working in this area is now sufficiently large that patterns and trends have emerged, as well as a regular set of misconceptions! 

In this session, Keith Belanager, DataOps.live Field CTO and multi decade practitioner, Paul Rankin, former Head of Data Platforms and Governance at Roche Diagnostics, multi decade practitioner and Data Mesh and Data Products expert, and Guy Adams, DataOps.live co-founder and author of DataOps for Dummies and Data Products for Dummies, meet to discuss the top myths and misconceptions they see and give the real facts! 

Moving data between operational systems and analytics platforms is often a painful process. Traditional pipelines that transfer data in and out of warehouses tend to become complex, brittle, and expensive to maintain over time.

Much of this complexity, however, is avoidable. Data in motion and data at rest—Kafka Topics and Iceberg Tables—can be treated as two sides of the same coin. By establishing an equivalence between Topics and Tables, it’s possible to transparently map between them and rethink how pipelines are built.

This talk introduces a declarative approach to bridging streaming and table-based systems. By shifting complexity into the data layer, we can decompose complex, imperative pipelines into simpler, more reliable workflows

We’ll explore the design principles behind this approach, including schema mapping and evolution between Kafka and Iceberg, and how to build a system that can continuously materialize and optimize hundreds of thousands of topics as Iceberg tables.

Whether you're building new pipelines or modernizing legacy systems, this session will provide practical patterns and strategies for creating resilient, scalable, and future-proof data architectures.

Hear directly from a solution architect with over a decade of hands-on experience in data integration. Gain insights into how the industry has transformed, how data complexity has exploded, and why simplicity is now essential to ensure data moves securely and efficiently to the right place.

The used car market is traditionally fraught with uncertainty and friction. Motorway is changing that. This fireside chat will explore how the company is harnessing the power of AI to create a seamless, transparent, and trustworthy experience for customers. It will dive into the practical applications of Motorway's AI models, from instant, accurate vehicle valuations to damage detection and customer support. Beyond the technology, Ben and Georgia will share Motorway's journey in fostering a culture of data enablement and how the company empowers its teams - from marketing to operations - with the tools and insights they need to make smarter, data-informed decisions.

Powered by: Women in Data®

In this session, we will explore how organisations can leverage ArcGIS to analyse spatial data within their data platforms, such as Databricks and Microsoft Fabric. We will discuss the importance of spatial data and its impact on decision-making processes. The session will cover various aspects, including the ingestion of streaming data using ArcGIS Velocity, the processing and management of large volumes of spatial data with ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric, and the use of ArcGIS for visualisation and advanced analytics with GeoAI. Join us to discover how these tools can provide actionable insights and enhance operational efficiency.

Discover how Google Cloud's AI-native platform is transforming data science, moving beyond traditional methods to empower you with an intuitive experience, an open ecosystem, and the ability to build intelligent, data-native AI agents. This shift eliminates integration headaches and scales your impact, enabling you to innovate faster and drive real-world outcomes. Explore how these advancements unify your workflows and unlock unprecedented possibilities for real-time, agent-driven insights.

In the scramble for agentic systems, the question has to be asked, are we ready? 

This session highlights the common challenges and complexities we face during the rush for autonomous orchestration. We'll demonstrate how Snowflake's AI data platform offers a unified, adaptable, and trusted solution for creating data agents you can trust.

In this short presentation, Big Data LDN Conference Chairman and Europe’s leading IT Industry Analyst in Data Management and Analytics, Mike Ferguson, will welcome everyone to Big Data LDN 2025. He will also summarise where companies are in data, analytics and AI in 2025, what the key challenges and trends are, how are these trends impacting on how companies build a data-driven enterprise and where you can find out more about these at the show.