VMware adds NL query analytics

VMware has added an AI-powered SQL Assistant to Tanzu Data Intelligence, letting users ask data questions in plain English instead of writing every query by hand. (blogs.vmware.com) The feature sits inside Tanzu Data Intelligence, Broadcom’s VMware-branded data lakehouse platform, which the company introduced on August 26, 2025 at VMware Explore 2025. Broadcom said the platform combines data ingestion, processing, querying, and artificial intelligence and machine learning tools in one system. (broadcom.com) A data lakehouse is a system that tries to keep raw data storage and fast analytics in one place, instead of splitting them across separate tools. Broadcom said Tanzu Data Intelligence is built to work with structured, semi-structured, unstructured, and streaming data across private and hybrid cloud setups. (blogs.vmware.com) The new assistant translates natural-language requests into SQL, the database language analysts use to pull and organize records. VMware said users can ask which table holds employee data, rank the top three sales representatives by revenue, or calculate monthly sales growth for the last three months. (blogs.vmware.com) VMware said the tool is aimed at analysts, not a replacement for them. In its product post, the company said the assistant can generate syntax, help decipher older SQL code, and apply massively parallel processing optimization so analysts spend less time debugging routine queries. (blogs.vmware.com) The company is also framing the feature as a private-cloud data product, not just a chatbot on top of dashboards. VMware said the assistant is “deeply integrated” into Tanzu Data Intelligence and that the underlying large language model is limited to read-only operations. (blogs.vmware.com) That read-only limit blocks structural database commands such as DROP, CREATE, and TRUNCATE, according to VMware’s documentation. Broadcom has been pitching the wider Tanzu data stack to regulated and security-minded customers that want analytics and AI tools without moving sensitive data out of private cloud environments. (blogs.vmware.com 1) (blogs.vmware.com 2) The SQL Assistant arrives as VMware keeps adding data and AI features across the Tanzu line. On April 15, 2026, the company announced new RabbitMQ-to-Apache Spark integration for real-time analytics, alongside what it called an AI-assisted SQL Assistant in the same data stack. (blogs.vmware.com) The pitch is straightforward: fewer hand-written queries, faster answers, and tighter controls over where enterprise data lives. For Broadcom’s VMware unit, the bet is that natural-language analytics will make its private-cloud data platform easier to use without giving up database guardrails. (blogs.vmware.com) (broadcom.com)