Alex Merced • 5/28/2026

The Semantic Layer as a Translation Engine: Bridging Natural Language and SQL

This article explores the role of a semantic layer as a translation engine between natural language questions and SQL queries. It details the translation stack including intent recognition, entity resolution, schema mapping, query generation, and validation. The semantic layer encodes business logic into virtual datasets (VDS), providing context for AI agents to accurately map terms like 'revenue' to SQL constructs. It covers metric definitions, wikis, labels, and accuracy tests, with examples from Dremio's architecture. Essential for data teams leveraging AI for analytics.

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#AI Agent #Query Generation #Semantic Layer