# How OpenAI Built a Reliable Data Agent with Context, Memory, and Evals

DevFeed: [How OpenAI Built a Reliable Data Agent with Context, Memory, and Evals](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/what-openai-s-data-agent-teaches-us-about-building-reliable-ai-agents-18028.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.levelupcoding.com/p/how-openai-built-its-data-agent>)

Author: Nikki Siapno

Published: 2026-08-02T13:14:27Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Level Up Coding System Design Newsletter](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/level-up-coding-system-design-newsletter.md>)

Topics: [OpenAI](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/openai.md>), [AI Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-engineering.md>), [AI Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-development.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>), [SQL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/sql.md>), [Slack](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/slack.md>)

Tags: [agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agents.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-agents.md>), [ai-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-engineering.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [evals](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/evals.md>), [memory](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/memory.md>), [openai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openai.md>), [schema](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/schema.md>), [sql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/sql.md>), [thread](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/thread.md>), [verify](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/verify.md>)

## AI overview

The article examines how OpenAI built an internal data agent for more than 3,500 users working across 70,000 datasets and over 600 petabytes of data. It explains that trustworthy results require more than valid SQL: the agent needs relevant business context, safeguards for permissions, ways to detect subtle query errors, and transparency so users can inspect its work.

## Source excerpt

How OpenAI built its data agent to work across 70,000 datasets.