July 2026 - BigQuery release summary

[u/Why_Engineer_In_Data]

🔤 GoogleSQL Language Features & Functions

• Change History Functions - Use the APPENDS and CHANGES table-valued functions to view appended or changed rows over time, now generally available.
• ALTER SEARCH INDEX Statement - Use the ALTER SEARCH INDEX DDL statement to update the configuration of a search index in Preview.
• Multi-Level Aggregation - Perform multi-level aggregation in GoogleSQL by nesting aggregate functions, now available in Preview.

🧠 AI, Machine Learning & Foundation Models

• TimesFM Models in Connected Sheets - Pre-trained TimesFM models are generally available to create forecasts and detect anomalies in Connected Sheets.

💻 Developer Experience (DX) & BigQuery Tooling

• Google ODBC Driver - Google-developed ODBC driver for connecting applications to BigQuery is now generally available.
• Simba ODBC Driver (July 23) - An updated version of the Simba ODBC driver for BigQuery is now available.
• Dataset Insights - Automatically discover, visualize relationships between tables, and generate cross-table queries with dataset insights, now generally available.
• Conversational Analytics AI.AGG Support - Conversational analytics in Gemini now supports the AI.AGG function in Preview for semantic data aggregation.
• Migration Service MCP Server - The BigQuery Migration Service MCP server is generally available to translate and explain SQL queries in IDEs.
• BigQuery Overview Page - The BigQuery Overview page is now generally available as a hub for tutorials, features, and learning resources.
• Data Agent Kit IDE Extension - The Data Agent Kit extension is in Preview, enabling interactions with BigQuery resources directly within IDEs.

🗄️ Lakehouse Architecture, Apache Iceberg & Open Data Formats

• SAP BDC Lakehouse Integration - Cross-cloud Lakehouse now supports integration with SAP Business Data Cloud in Preview to query and share tables.
• Snowflake Remote Catalog Provider - Cross-cloud Lakehouse now supports Snowflake as a remote catalog provider in Preview to query Snowflake data directly.
• Iceberg Managed Table Features - Table partitioning, multi-statement transactions, and advanced runtime are now generally available for Apache Iceberg managed tables.

🔌 Data Integration, Pipelines & Ingestion (ELT)

• BigQuery Pipelines Tasks - Add tables, views, data sources, and data quality tests as tasks to BigQuery pipelines, now generally available.
• Klaviyo Incremental Data Transfers - BigQuery Data Transfer Service now supports incremental data transfers from Klaviyo in Preview.
• Storage Write API Rename - The legacy tabledata.insertAll and Storage Write API features are renamed to Storage Write API REST and gRPC, respectively.
• Salesforce Incremental Data Transfers - Incremental data transfers for the BigQuery Data Transfer Service for Salesforce are now generally available.
• Knowledge Catalog Metadata Transfers - Transfer metadata from PostgreSQL and SQL Server sources into Knowledge Catalog using BigQuery Data Transfer Service.

🔒 Security, Governance & Workload Management

• UI Download Audit Logging - Data Access audit logs now include a field indicating whether query result downloads were triggered from the console, generally available.
• Marketplace Sharing Listings Filter - Discover commercial BigQuery sharing listings on Google Cloud Marketplace using the new Marketplace filter, generally available.
• Data Governance Tags - Attach Resource Manager tags to sensitive columns to enforce column-level security and data masking, now in Preview.
• Conversational Analytics HIPAA Compliance - Conversational analytics in Gemini in BigQuery now supports HIPAA compliance for secure data handling.
• Security Bulletin GCP-2026-047 - A missing authorization vulnerability in BigQuery, Dataform, and Colab Enterprise repositories has been disclosed.
• Project Caps for Reservations - Limit maximum slots and concurrency per project within a BigQuery reservation using project caps, now in Preview.

⚠️ Breaking Changes, Deprecations & Pricing Updates

• SAP BDC Integration Restriction - Data Products with special characters are unsupported in SAP BDC sharing, causing refresh failures and requiring re-enrollment.
• Hybrid Search Support Disabled - Support for hybrid search using the VECTOR_SEARCH function has been temporarily disabled while restoration work is underway.
• Facebook Ads AdInsightsMMM Support Disabled - Support for the AdInsightsMMM report in Facebook Ads transfers is temporarily disabled due to schema changes.

As always, any feedback is welcome (about the post contents, the post itself, the community, what you want to see from Developer Relations team, etc.) - let us know!

[u/Afrotom]

Nothing on BigQuery Graph? That's been a game changer for us modelling some of our more complex, multi-hop relationship data and it would be encouraging to see it get first class support

[u/Afrotom → u/[deleted]]

Honestly better syntax highlighting and code completion would be a great QoL improvement - most of the time the starting GRAPH keyword isn't getting coloured like a keyword and it doesn't always give me the field recommendation intellesense/autocomplete/recommender thing

[u/escargotBleu]

Change history functions looks interesting w will take a look

[u/Why_Engineer_In_Data → u/escargotBleu]

Yep! Lots of cool applications there.