Al-Driven businesses must rethink data handling: Confluent's Jay Kreps

Al applications don't just need historical data—they need live operational data to make the right decisions in the moment.

- By Jatinder Singh | [e-mail]

BENGALURU, INDIA – As artificial intelligence (AI) moves from theoretical hype to real-world applications, one challenge remains: AI can't make good decisions with outdated data. Today's AI-powered applications must continuously process and react to live information in real time, and businesses that rely on batch-based architectures are struggling to keep up.

Speaking at Current 2025, Confluent's flagship event in Bengaluru, Jay Kreps, Co-founder and CEO of Confluent, emphasized that AI-driven businesses need a fundamental shift in how they handle data.

“AI projects are failing because old development methods can’t keep pace with new consumer expectations,” Kreps said in his opening address. “Applications today aren’t just passive tools; they need to understand live business context and take action automatically. That’s only possible when AI is fed real-time data, and that’s exactly what we’re enabling with Tableflow.”

From data warehouses to real-time decision-making

For years, businesses have relied on batch-based analytics, where data was collected, stored in data warehouses, and processed periodically. But in the AI era, this approach is too slow. AI applications don’t just need historical data—they need live operational data to make the right decisions in the moment.