Mar 2026 - Iceberg for AI Agents, Variant Data Types, and PMC member Kevin Liu

## Apache Iceberg™ Meetup Atlanta

Join us on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, at the AWS Buckhead office!

​​Connect with fellow enthusiasts, share insights, and dive into the latest developments in the Apache Iceberg™ ecosystem! Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to Apache Iceberg, this meetup is the perfect place to exchange ideas and spark innovation.

Agenda
​6:00 PM - 6:30 PM: Networking and Welcome Drinks
​​​6:30 PM - 7:45 PM: Welcome Remarks & Presentations!
​​​7:45 PM - 8:30 PM: Demos and Networking
​​
The event will focus on use cases around and innovations in Apache Iceberg (https://iceberg.apache.org/).

We will discuss topics around Open-Source Data Analytics, Open Table Formats (OTF), software concepts like Transactional Data Lakes or Lakehouse, advancements in AI/ML including generative AI, and many more topics of mutual interest that leverage Apache Iceberg.

## Talk 1: Iceberg for Agents - Elevating Content into AI-Ready Context

​AI agents fail in production because they're overwhelmed with data but starved for context. LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.

​In this session, we'll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.

Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations at Fivetran

## Talk 2: Beyond JSON: The Evolution of Variant Data Types in Modern Analytics

As semi-structured data grows exponentially, the Variant data type has become critical for modern analytics, bridging the gap between schema flexibility and query performance. This talk will discuss how analytical systems such as Apache Doris, ClickHouse, Elasticsearch, Snowflake, and Iceberg implement JSON analytics, each with distinct trade- offs. We'll explore technical innovations from dynamic subcolumns and vertical compaction to inverted indexing, revealing why column limits, schema rigidity, and performance bottlenecks persist across platforms. Finally, we'll discuss the architecture convergence toward lakehouse architectures where native JSON optimization, schema evolution, and computational efficiency unite to redefine analytics on open data lakes.

Kevin Shen, Product Management at VeloDB

## Talk 3: TO-BE-FINALIZED, but possible talk from Iceberg PMC member

Glad to hear about a topic YOU would like to present at this event or a future one.

Possibly talk from Kevin Liu, Apache Iceberg PMC member

FEEL FREE TO SUBMIT YOUR TALK TO lester.martin@gmail.com FOR THIS EVENT OR A FUTURE ONE.