Oracle 9i is changing the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) paradigm by providing powerful new ETL capabilities within the database. Key features discussed include external tables for reading flat files directly without loading to temporary tables, the MERGE statement for updating or inserting rows with one statement, multi-table inserts for conditionally inserting rows into multiple tables, pipelined table functions for efficiently passing row sets between functions, and native compilation for improving PL/SQL performance. These new Oracle 9i capabilities allow for simpler, more efficient, and lower cost ETL processes compared to traditional third-party ETL tools.