The text discusses the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in transforming the landscape of data work, enabling data teams to become strategic partners within their organizations. AI is enhancing data team efficiency by automating routine tasks, providing predictive insights and recommendations, and simplifying data integration. The first step towards this transformation involves enabling natural language chatbots, which empowers non-technical users to ask data questions in plain language. This is made possible by a universal semantic layer that provides context and governance to reduce errors and hallucinations. As AI-first data teams evolve, they aim to build more proactive and action-oriented systems - AI agents - that can leverage data insights to perform tasks, trigger workflows, or provide unsolicited information. Autonomous agents are the ultimate vision for AI-first data teams, where AI systems can independently perform complex data-driven tasks without direct human prompting. The semantic layer remains crucial in this advanced stage, providing the necessary context, business logic, and access controls to ensure that autonomous actions are based on accurate, compliant, and business-aligned insights. Establishing a strong, governed data foundation is essential for scaling AI-enabled analytics and moving beyond simple chatbots to sophisticated agents.