SQLBits Session Voting is Open Now! Wanna See My Sessions at Bits?

SQLBits
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SQLBits 2026

I’d love to come over and speak at SQLBits this April, but for that to happen, the organizers need to hear from you that you’d come see my sessions.

If you’re going to Bits, you’ll need a login, and then you can vote on these sessions – but only if you want to see them! I’m not asking for non-attendees to vote to skew the results – that’s not fair to the other speakers.

This year, the theme is cartoons, and you can see how some of my sessions were heavily influenced by that, hahaha. Here’s what I submitted this year:

All-Day Workshop – Dev-Prod Demon Hunters: Finding the Real Cause of Production SlownessBrent Ozar loves K-Pop Demon Hunters, so this demo-driven class hunts down the real causes of production slowness. Watch dev and prod face off as Brent uncovers golden clues in plans, settings, and data that explain why the same query behaves so differently.

Calling AI from T-SQL: Real-Life Lessons from sp_BlitzCacheBrent Ozar cuts through AI hype with real-world lessons from calling LLMs inside sp_BlitzCache. Learn how to pick models, write effective prompts, pass the right context, handle failures, and use AI safely from your own stored procedures.

Pokémon Battle, Choose Your Index: You Can’t Have Them AllIn this demo-heavy, interactive session, Brent Ozar turns index tuning into a Pokémon-style battle. Using the Stack Overflow Users table, the audience plays index “cards” against real queries to see which designs win, lose, or backfire—and why you can’t have them all.

The Big Red Button: How to Use sp_KillIn this quick talk, Brent Ozar introduces sp_Kill, a safer alternative to restarting SQL Server during emergencies. Learn when to push the big red button, how to identify runaway sessions, and how to kill the right queries while logging everything for later analysis.

Watch Brent Tune a Query in SQL Server 2025Ever wonder how somebody else does it? In this all-demo session, watch over Brent Ozar’s shoulder while he takes a slow query, analyzes it, and iterates over several improvements. He’ll explain his thought process and get feedback from the audience.

Panel Discussion: 20 Years of the Cloud: What Changed, What Didn’t, and What’s NextBrent Ozar leads a panel of experienced data professionals reflecting on 20 years of the cloud. With no vendor marketing, they discuss what actually changed, which problems never went away, and what they expect to face in the next 20 years based on real-world experience.

Panel Discussion: AI in Your Career: Sidekick, Hero, or Villain?Brent Ozar leads a panel discussion about how AI is reshaping data careers. Panelists share how they decide what to delegate to AI, how impacts differ by role, warning signs of over-automation, and how to intentionally cast AI as a sidekick, hero, or villain in your career.

Then, go through the other 700+ sessions to vote on others you’d like to see too. I hope to see you at Bits!

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2 Comments. Leave new

  • Brian Boodman
    January 9, 2026 9:16 pm

    Brent, I notice this blog post excludes 2 of your proposed sessions:
    • Dev-Prod Demon Hunters: Finding the Real Cause of Production Slowness
    • Watch Brent Tune a Query in SQL Server 2025

    Do you prefer your visitors not vote for those particular sessions?

    Reply
    • Thanks for the heads up! That’s really weird – those two sessions weren’t in the search results, oddly, so I figured the Bits team removed them. I’ve found them via another way and added ’em back into the blog post.

      Reply

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