Friday 1:00 PM - 1:20 PM · Expo Insight Theater

The Hybrid Data Future: When to Persist, When to Let Agents Fetch

Nagaraj Sastry

Nagaraj Sastry

Senior Vice President, Data and Analytics at Encora

The "persist everything" era of data architecture is ending. Microsoft Fabric is the first platform that lets organizations make a genuine choice: persist strategically in OneLake, access external data via shortcuts and mirroring, or let AI agents retrieve directly from source systems at runtime - all under one security and governance model. This session explores the decision framework: when does persistence remain critical, and when can agents reason on-demand? Learn how the semantic layer - the Fabric IQ that grounds agents in trusted business data - becomes the governance backbone for agentic queries, and how leading organizations are compressing implementation timelines from months to weeks - shifting from project delivery to efficient, repeatable, scalable outcomes.