# Data for AI: Open vs Locked In

A Data for AI meetup about open vs locked-in data for AI, focusing on open table formats, semantics, catalogs, and agent runtimes. It is for data engineers, AI/ML engineers, platform architects, and the leaders they build for.

- When: Wed, Nov 4, 2026 · 17:00–20:00 (America/Los_Angeles time)
- Where: OneSpace Work, OneSpace Work, 2665 N First St #214, San Jose, CA 95134, USA, United States
- Format: In person
- Type: Meetup
- Topics: AI, GenAI & LLMs, Data
- For: Software engineers, AI & ML engineers, Data professionals, CTOs & tech leads, CEOs & executives, Founders, Product managers
- Price: Free
- Organizer: Data For AI Events
- Register and details: https://luma.com/dataforai-1lnn

## About

Open table formats won the storage war. Then agents showed up, and every platform decided it wants to be the one place they live. The walled garden is back, and this time it is being built around the catalog, the semantic layer, and the agent runtime instead of the file format.
That's the theme for this Data for AI meetup: Open vs Locked In. Open table formats, open semantics, and open catalogs versus the walled garden, in the age of agents. We'll get into what "open" actually buys you when the user of your data is an agent, where interoperability holds up in production and where it quietly doesn't, and the cases where locking in was the right call.
The talks
Raghvendra Yadav (StarTree): Open Format, Closed Index: the Lock-In Iceberg Didn't Solve
Jaz Ku (PuppyGraph) on graph queries over the relational data you already have, without a second database
Mark Hoerth (Datastrato): a live demo on starting with the ontology, Apache Jena with Apache Gravitino
Practitioner talks, Q&A, and time with the people who gave them, with food and drinks on us. Built for data engineers, AI/ML engineers, platform architects, and the leaders they build for. Seats are capped, so grab your spot now.
Timing
Doors open at 5:00 PM for food, drinks, and conversation. Talks run from 6:00 to 7:30 PM, then the room is yours until 8:00. Come at 5 if you want to catch the speakers before they're on.
Getting there
Wednesday, November 4. OneSpace, 2665 North 1st St, San Jose, CA 95134. Suite 214 is on the…

## Links

- On the map: https://events.intentface.com/e/data-for-ai-open-vs-locked-in-san-jose-2026-11
- As JSON: https://events.intentface.com/api/events/data-for-ai-open-vs-locked-in-san-jose-2026-11
- More events like this: https://events.intentface.com/llms.txt

From Intentface Events, https://events.intentface.com