Live Class Justification Email for Managers with an AI Budget to Burn
Please register EMPLOYEE_NAME_HERE for Brent Ozar’s Live Class Season Pass 2026 before the 50% launch sale ends on July 10. https://training.brentozar.com/p/live-class-season-pass
The regular price is $4,395/person, but the launch sale price is $2,197.50 through July 11. Registration for the first rotation closes at the same time, and if we miss it, registration closes until October. To get that discount, we have to use a credit card or purchasing card. If we ask for a PO or invoice, it’s full price.
Use their name & email as the buyer info. The receipt will go there, and tell them to forward it to you for accounting.
The background: I’m approving this because we need to get better at using AI practically and safely in our SQL Server troubleshooting work. We already know AI is going to be part of technical work in 2027 and beyond, but we need people who understand what to ask, what evidence to feed it, how to verify the answers, how to control costs, and where the guardrails need to be.
The next rotation of classes is:
- Fundamentals Week: July 13-17 (which includes index, query, and server tuning)
- Mastering Index Tuning 2026: Aug 31-Sept 4
- Mastering Query Tuning 2026: Sept 28-Oct 2
- Mastering Server Tuning 2026: Oct 19-23
Each class is Monday-Friday, 4 hours per day. I’ll clear their calendar for the class times on those dates so they can focus on the training while still being available for urgent issues as needed.
This is a good fit because SQL Server performance tuning is exactly the kind of work where AI can help, but only if the human using it knows what they’re doing. AI can summarize symptoms, suggest next steps, and help interpret evidence, but it can also give confident-sounding answers that are wrong, risky, expensive, or irrelevant to our environment.
I want us to build the human judgment layer around AI-assisted troubleshooting. That means knowing how to collect the right data, ask better questions, review the recommendations, avoid unsafe changes, and make cost-effective decisions instead of blindly trusting a chatbot with production performance problems.
The classes include practical use of AI tools in SQL Server troubleshooting, including the AI capabilities recently added to the free open source First Responder Kit tools like sp_BlitzCache and sp_BlitzIndex, plus SSMS Copilot. That matters because this is not abstract “AI transformation” training. It’s hands-on database performance work using real tools against real SQL Server problems.
One other thing I like: the training itself is built and taught by a real human being, and Brent says none of the training material is generated by AI. This is not AI-generated courseware, AI-written slides, or generic chatbot output. Brent has 25+ years of real-world SQL Server performance tuning experience, has trained over 18,000 students, and teaches with the full-size Stack Overflow database instead of tiny demo databases.
That combination is why I think this belongs in our AI budget: we are not just buying SQL Server training, and we are not just buying AI training. We are training someone to use AI effectively, safely, and cost-effectively in a real production troubleshooting workflow.
There’s cheaper recorded training options, but we’ve found that the team just doesn’t complete that training. With live classes, they can ask questions, stay focused, and block the time on their calendar. The live format creates the urgency and structure to actually get through the material. If they miss a class, though, like if an emergency pops up, they also get access to the recordings through the end of the year.
The goals are faster troubleshooting, better use of AI tools, stronger guardrails around AI recommendations, fewer risky guesses, and better SQL Server performance decisions before we spend more on hardware, cloud resources, or outside help.
Please get this registered before July 10 so we can get the 50% launch sale price and get into the first rotation.