AI as a SQL Performance Tuning Assistant: A Structured Evaluation

SQL performance tuning has been one of the most technical tasks in present-day software engineering. A query can be logically sound, well-indexed, and well-tested, yet still degrade significantly under production load. Answers to performance issues are found in execution plans, which are usually thick, technical, and hard to understand quickly. The skills and time needed to learn the strategies of joins, the type of scan, cost estimates, cardinality forecasts, and all that cannot be met by the forces of the development team. As large language models (LLMs) have become integrated into the developer workflow, a number of engineers have started piloting the use of AI as a query analysis tool and an interpretation of performance plans. Rather than manually dissecting the complex EXPLAIN ANALYZE results, developers are requesting AI to clarify bottlenecks, recommend indexing plans, and point out the inefficiencies. This brings us to a critical and practical query: Is it possible that AI can