State of AI Agents

[fawad956]

Three years ago, provisioning a test database at work meant a full ticket cycle with my name on the approval. Last week I watched an analyst spin one up in under a minute using an AI agent, no ticket, no wait.

I did not expect database administration to be the first place I saw agents take over.

A new Databricks report says AI agents now create 80 percent of new databases and 97 percent of test branches industry wide, up from near zero two years ago.

I used to be the checkpoint for that process. Now I am not the checkpoint, I am the one deciding what the agent should never be allowed to touch without a human looking first.

The job did not disappear. It moved somewhere higher up the stack.

If you work near data infrastructure, has your role moved up the stack too, or is it still mostly the old work?

[Srini_Pesala]

Yes, I think the role is moving up the stack. Routine provisioning and environment setup are increasingly becoming automated, while the human role is shifting toward architecture, governance, security, data access, and defining the guardrails for agents. The real value is no longer just doing the task, but deciding what the agent should be allowed to do and when human approval is required.

[fawad956]

@Srini_Pesala and especially what the agent is not allowed to do under any circumstances. We have seen agents went rogue recently with OpenAI.

[coolbeans201]

I'm fine turning over development to AI agents, but I still feel like confirmation and certain actions need to lie in the hands of humans. Maybe I'm being too cautious, but I'd rather be safe than sorry in those cases.

[fawad956]

@coolbeans201 I completely agree. There needs to be a human element in AI agents.