Qlik is partnering with Starburst to help enterprises turn fragmented data into governed, AI-ready intelligence—pairing Qlik’s data integration, replication, analytics, and agentic workflows with Starburst’s federated query engine, context layer, and agentic capabilities.
The collaboration aims at giving customers more choice in how they query, move, prepare, and use data across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, according to both companies.
“Enterprises need more than access to data: they need AI that understands what that data means,” said Matt Fuller, founder and VP of AI and ML, Starburst. “Starburst gives customers governed, federated access to data wherever it lives, with the business context and semantic layer that makes AI answers trustworthy and consistent. Together with Qlik, we give enterprises a practical path from distributed data to trusted business intelligence and AI, without unnecessary data movement, replatforming, or vendor lock-in.”
Qlik and Starburst both contribute to preparing and transforming trusted data, with Qlik orchestrating the workflow and logic and Starburst serving as the execution engine across distributed environments. Qlik also helps replicate, analyze, and operationalize that data for business intelligence and AI. Together, the companies help customers keep data where it belongs, move it when it creates value, and give AI the trusted context it needs to act, the vendors said.
"The bottleneck for enterprise AI isn't the models—it's the data architectures they're asked to work with. Fragmented, ungoverned data doesn't just slow AI down; it makes the outcomes untrustworthy,” said James Fisher, chief strategy officer, Qlik. “What enterprises need is a way to give AI access to the right data, in the right context, with the right controls—without being forced into a single architecture or a costly re-platforming exercise. That's what this partnership will be built around. Qlik and Starburst give customers the freedom to keep data where it belongs, move it when it creates value, and trust what AI does with it."
The partnership offers:
- Federated access for analytics and AI: The companies are developing integration patterns that combine Starburst federated access, context and analytics capabilities with Qlik data integration, replication, transformation, and analytics to support trusted BI and AI across distributed environments.
- Hybrid and on-premises reference architectures: The companies have validated joint solution patterns combining Qlik Replicate, Starburst Enterprise and Qlik analytics for customers operating across regulated, hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
- Context for BI and agents: Starburst’s context layer, analytics, and agentic capabilities, paired with Qlik’s integration, replication, transformation, and analytics strengths, help business users and agents work from governed data and shared business definitions.
- AI-assisted data pipelines: Qlik and Starburst are working on agentic pipeline capabilities that translate natural language requests into optimized SQL workflows, helping data engineers accelerate pipeline creation while maintaining validation and control.
For customers, the value is architectural choice. They can use the data platforms, applications and deployment models already in place, query data where it lives, move it when the workload requires, and preserve the lineage, policy, and business meaning AI needs for reliable outcomes, the vendors said.
For more information about this news, visit www.qlik.com or www.starburst.io.