Confluent has introduced new features in Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink designed to simplify the development of real-time Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. Flink Native Inference enables teams to run open source AI models directly within Confluent Cloud, mitigating the need for extra infrastructure management. Additionally, Flink search offers a unified interface for accessing data across multiple vector databases, facilitating streamlined data retrieval and discovery.

Built-in machine learning functions allow non-data science specialists to utilize advanced analytics capabilities, such as forecasting and anomaly detection, seamlessly within Flink SQL. These updates aim to reduce complexities in developing AI applications, addressing inefficiencies arising from fragmented workflows.

“Building real-time AI applications has been too complex for too long, requiring a maze of tools and deep expertise just to get started,” said Shaun Clowes, Chief Product Officer at Confluent. “With the latest advancements in Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink, we’re breaking down those barriers—bringing AI-powered streaming intelligence within reach of any team.”

The initiative comes in response to a growing trend, as highlighted by McKinsey, indicating that 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investments over the next three years. However, the complexities developers face when managing various tools and languages can hinder progress and result in costly inefficiencies. Confluent’s enhanced offerings seek to address these challenges.

According to Steffen Hoellinger, Co-founder and CEO at Airy, Confluent’s platform enables more efficient workflows by allowing direct interaction with large language model (LLM) and vector databases. This capability has led to improved productivity for customers across their operations.

Furthermore, as the sole serverless stream processing solution that integrates real-time and batch processing, Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink helps teams manage both types of data workloads on a single platform. These new AI and ML features are currently available in an early access program for Confluent Cloud customers.