diff --git a/.changes/unreleased/Fixes-20230614-145954.yaml b/.changes/unreleased/Fixes-20230614-145954.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..febe290ffd8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changes/unreleased/Fixes-20230614-145954.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+kind: Fixes
+body: Update `use_discrete_percentile` and `use_approximate_percentile` to be non
+  optional and default to `False`
+time: 2023-06-14T14:59:54.042341-07:00
+custom:
+  Author: QMalcolm
+  Issue: "7866"
diff --git a/core/dbt/contracts/graph/semantic_models.py b/core/dbt/contracts/graph/semantic_models.py
index 8645a1e54b0..492c3188808 100644
--- a/core/dbt/contracts/graph/semantic_models.py
+++ b/core/dbt/contracts/graph/semantic_models.py
@@ -120,8 +120,8 @@ def is_linkable_entity_type(self) -> bool:
 @dataclass
 class MeasureAggregationParameters(dbtClassMixin):
     percentile: Optional[float] = None
-    use_discrete_percentile: Optional[bool] = None
-    use_approximate_percentile: Optional[bool] = None
+    use_discrete_percentile: bool = False
+    use_approximate_percentile: bool = False
 
 
 @dataclass
diff --git a/tests/functional/semantic_models/test_semantic_model_parsing.py b/tests/functional/semantic_models/test_semantic_model_parsing.py
index 295b5d7949a..149b609b75f 100644
--- a/tests/functional/semantic_models/test_semantic_model_parsing.py
+++ b/tests/functional/semantic_models/test_semantic_model_parsing.py
@@ -29,6 +29,18 @@
       - name: has_revenue
         expr: true
         agg: sum_boolean
+      - name: discrete_order_value_p99
+        expr: order_total
+        agg: percentile
+        agg_params:
+          percentile: 0.99
+          use_discrete_percentile: True
+          use_approximate_percentile: False
+      - name: test_agg_params_optional_are_empty
+        expr: order_total
+        agg: percentile
+        agg_params:
+          percentile: 0.99
 
     dimensions:
       - name: ds
@@ -71,7 +83,7 @@ def test_semantic_model_parsing(self, project):
             semantic_model.node_relation.relation_name
             == f'"dbt"."{project.test_schema}"."fct_revenue"'
         )
-        assert len(semantic_model.measures) == 3
+        assert len(semantic_model.measures) == 5
 
     @pytest.mark.skip("Restore this test when partial parsing is implemented.")
     def test_semantic_model_partial_parsing(self, project):