Confluent’s Data Streaming for AI initiative aims to boost AI app development

The initiative is a result of the managed Apache Kafka service provider partnering with the likes of MongoDB, Pinecone, Rockset, Zilliz, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

artificial intelligence application development programming
Shutterstock

Managed Apache Kafka service provider Confluent has launched  a new initiative, dubbed Data Streaming for AI, in order to help enterprises develop applications based on real-time data, including generative AI  use cases.

The premise of the initiative is based on Confluent’s real-time streaming data engine that will allow enterprises to make real-time contextual inferences on curated, governed, trustworthy data. These inferences can be later streamed to vector databases, AI-powered applications, and  any other AI-based systems.

In order to enable enterprise users to connect to various vector databases with contextual data, Confluent has partnered with MongoDB, Pinecone, Rockset, Weaviate, and Zilliz.

Vector databases are especially important as they can store, index, and augment large data sets in formats that AI technologies like LLMs require,” the company said in a news announcement, adding that these integrations can be used via Confluent Cloud’s fully managed data streams.

The company is expected to add more such partners in the coming months via its Connect with Confluent program.

The company is also partnering with cloud service providers, such as Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, in order to develop integrations, proof of concepts and go-to-market strategies around AI.

“Confluent plans to leverage Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities to improve business insights and operational efficiencies for retail and financial services customers,” it said. In addition, the company is  planning to create a Microsoft Copilot template to enable  AI assistants to perform business transactions and provide real-time updates.

Confluent AI Assistant to provide suggestions, generate code

In order to provide suggestions and generate code, the company is offering  a Confluent AI Assistant, which can be accessed via the Confluent Cloud Console.

The AI-based assistant can help teams get contextual answers they need to speed up engineering innovations on Confluent, the company said, adding that the assistant can also be used to generate code.

“The assistant provides responses by combining publicly available information, such as Confluent documentation, with contextual customer information to provide specific, timely responses,” the company said.

The Confluent AI assistant is expected to be made available in 2024 at no additional cost, a company spokesperson said.

Further, the company said that it will add a series of updates to its newly released Flink service for Confluent Cloud that brings AI capabilities to Flink SQL.

Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc.