Andrew Pruski
Principal Field Solutions Architect
About
Andrew is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and Docker Captain who helps organise Data Ceili and EightKB.He is interested in all things database-, Kubernetes-, and container-related and shares his passion for these topics by speaking at events across the world.Originally from Wales, Andrew is now based in Ireland and continues exploring the country.
Talk
Andrew Pruski | The Burrito Bot: AI-Powered Search in SQL Server 2025
Semantic Similarity Search, Vector Data, SQL Server
SQL Server 2025 introduces native vector support, enabling AI-powered semantic search directly inside the database engine. But what does that mean for data professionals, and how does it actually work?
In this session, Andrew will break down the fundamentals of vector search and show exactly how SQL Server stores, indexes, and queries embeddings to deliver semantic search capabilities.
He will cover:
- What embeddings are and how to visualize them in high-dimensional space
- How the vector data type works in SQL Server
- How to generate and store embeddings using an external large language model (LLM)
- Performing searches using VECTORSEARCH() and VECTORDISTANCE()
- How vector indexes, such as those based on the DiskANN algorithm, work under the hood
Andrew will then bring it all together by building an intelligent, AI-driven application to provide burrito restaurant recommendations in Ireland.
This session is ideal for data professionals and developers who want a practical understanding of SQL Server’s vector capabilities, with real demos and a real use case.