Oracle Select AI: Natural Language Queries on Your Database

Oracle 23ai introduces Select AI — a feature that lets you query your Oracle database using plain English (or other natural languages), which Oracle translates into SQL using an LLM.

It’s not magic. It’s a bridge between a large language model (OpenAI, Cohere, or others) and your database schema. But it’s designed carefully, with schema awareness and configurable profiles.

Setting up a Select AI profile:

BEGIN
    DBMS_CLOUD_AI.CREATE_PROFILE(
        profile_name   => 'hr_assistant',
        attributes     => '{
            "provider"      : "openai",
            "credential_name": "openai_cred",
            "object_list"   : [
                {"owner": "HR", "name": "EMPLOYEES"},
                {"owner": "HR", "name": "DEPARTMENTS"}
            ]
        }'
    );
END;

Querying in natural language:

SELECT AI 'How many employees are in the Sales department?'
USING PROFILE hr_assistant;

Oracle translates this to the appropriate SQL and returns the results.

Modes of operation:

-- See the SQL that was generated (transparency mode)
SELECT AI SHOWSQL 'List top 5 earning employees by department'
USING PROFILE hr_assistant;

-- Explain the results in natural language
SELECT AI NARRATE 'What was the headcount change from 2023 to 2024?'
USING PROFILE hr_assistant;

Honest caveats

Select AI depends on an external LLM provider (it currently doesn’t use a built-in model). The quality of generated SQL depends heavily on schema naming, documentation, and the complexity of the question. It works best on well-named schemas with reasonable cardinality — it will struggle with highly normalized schemas or ambiguous business terminology.

But as a natural language layer on top of structured data, it’s a legitimate tool for non-SQL users. Executive dashboards, self-service analytics, and chatbot integrations are all viable use cases.