Life Is But A Stream

Migrating an entire bank's infrastructure without losing a single transaction sounds impossible. Yet, OCBC successfully modernized  their event-driven architecture across Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong with zero data loss. In this episode, George Goh (Executive Director at OCBC) joins Joseph Morais and Sami Amed (Staff Solutions Engineer at Confluent) to pull back the curtain on a massive data...

What does it take to run real-time safety checks on every prompt sent to an AI companion platform serving 60 million monthly users? For Character. AI, the answer was rethinking the entire data pipeline—without rethinking the budget. By building on WarpStream's Kafka-compatible, bring-your-own-cloud architecture, the team found a way to process massive prompt and response payloads in near real time...

Real-time data and AI are converging—and companies that have already solved the data pipeline problem are pulling ahead fast. Wix processes over 40 billion interactions every day across hundreds of millions of websites, and the architecture behind that scale didn't happen by accident. It was built, lane by lane, around the principle that your upstream data must be at least as fast as your fastest...

Most enterprises don't need to build AI models from scratch—they need to put AI to work. That requires a data foundation that is real-time, reliable, and ready to serve intelligent systems at scale. In this episode, Varun Jasti, Solution Architect at AWS, joins host Joseph Morais to explore how AWS and Confluent are co-architecting the infrastructure layer for agentic AI. Varun draws a direct para...

The average grocery store has 65 to 80% inventory accuracy. One in 10 products is out of stock at any moment. For an industry operating on razor-thin margins and competing against digital-native challengers, that data gap is existential. In this episode, Kevin Johnson, CEO of Focal Systems, sits down with Joseph to explore how his team is using computer vision, data streaming, and stateful stream...

What happens when a security intelligence company decides that data contracts aren't optional, they're the foundation? For SecurityScorecard, that decision changed everything: how teams share data, how pipelines are built, and how quickly a new engineer can ship production-grade work on day one. In this episode, Brandon Brown, Senior Engineering Manager, and Manan Monga, Senior Software Engineer a...

45 million vehicles, 90 markets, 12+ iconic brands, each with its own data silos, standards, and infrastructures.  In this episode, Chetan Alatagi, Solution Architect reveals how they transitioned from fragmented legacy ETL silos to a Unified Data Ecosystem—a global data streaming highway that turns vehicle telemetry into real-time value. Chetan joins Joseph to go under the hood of a multi-region,...

How is it possible to order groceries to your doorstep in seconds, yet still have to fax a signed contract and deliver a physical check to book a bus?  For Busie, the answer wasn’t just building a marketplace, it was building the underlying infrastructure from the ground up. By adopting a central nervous system approach to data, their lean engineering team has modernized a legacy industry, replaci...

AI isn’t just evolving—it’s reshaping who your customers are, how systems operate, and what real time really means. From machines making purchase decisions to agents increasing query volume across databases, the realities of 2026  are forcing leaders to rethink data architecture and governance strategies at a fundamental level.  In this episode, Joseph is joined by Will LaForest (Field CTO, Conflu...

Legacy systems don’t have to hold you back. In high-volume markets where milliseconds matter, MarketAxess—an electronic trading platform for institutional investors—needed a way to scale trade data reliably across on-prem systems and the cloud. That journey—from self-managed Apache Kafka® to MSK to Confluent Cloud—reshaped how their engineering teams build, scale, and govern real-time infrastructu...

In 2025, real-time data moved from important to mission-critical. From billion-event pipelines to AI agents reasoning over fresh data streams, the conversations this year revealed just how fast organizations are rethinking their data infrastructure and what’s possible when data streaming becomes the foundation. In this episode, Joseph Morais curates standout moments from the year: the stakes of re...

Saudi Arabia is rapidly emerging as a global AI powerhouse, a transformation fueled by a fundamental shift in how data is managed, processed, and activated.  Mohamed Ahmed Anwar, General Manager of Presales at (sccc by stc) Saudi Cloud Computing Company, explains why they adopted Confluent’s data streaming platform: cyber resilience and security, strong governance, and scalability paired with simp...

From the heart of the expo hall at Current NOLA, this special episode drops you into the conversations, energy, and the breakthroughs as they happened. Host, Joseph Morais, and co-host, Adi Polak talk with data streaming leaders and community voices to unpack how teams are using Apache Kafka® and Apache Flink® to power low-latency, AI-ready applications—covering patterns from usage-based billing a...

How quickly can your business turn usage into revenue? For modern software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, speed is a competitive advantage. Metronome is redefining what’s possible with a real-time monetization engine that scales to billions of events per day—all powered by Confluent’s data streaming platform and Apache Kafka®. In this episode, Cosmo Wolfe, CTO at Metronome, joins Joseph Morais to...

Software development is changing fast. With Cursor, Anysphere is building an AI-forward IDE that fuses human creativity with machine intelligence. At the heart of this transformation is data streaming—making it possible to train models responsibly, deliver lightning-fast Tab completions, and scale telemetry without breaking engineering velocity. In this episode, engineer Alex Haugland shares how W...

All AI problems are data problems—and one of the biggest is getting AI agents to talk to each other. This special episode with Sean Falconer dives into how agents built by different teams often end up stranded in “intelligence silos,” unable to collaborate or share context. The result? Fragmented AI that struggles to deliver real business value.  Tune in to learn why moving beyond isolated AI expe...

In a highly regulated industry where every millisecond matters, Swedbank is shifting its data strategy to move fast without breaking trust. In this episode, Rami Al Lolah, Lead Architect at Swedbank’s Integration Center of Excellence, shares how the bank built a future-proof foundation using Apache Kafka® with Confluent Cloud. From early investments in building reusable data products to shift left...

Strategic partnerships don’t work without trust. And in the data streaming world, trust begins with transparency. In this episode, Elena Cuevas, Sr. Manager of Cloud Partner Solutions Engineering at Confluent, joins Joseph Morais to unpack what it takes to collaborate with hyperscalers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. From managing competitive overlaps to future-proofing enterprise dat...

Blockchain may be decentralized, but reliable access to its data is anything but simple. In this episode, Ethan Chan, Co-Founder & CEO of Allium, shares how his team transforms blockchain firehoses into clean, queryable, real-time data feeds. From the pitfalls of hosting your own data streaming infrastructure to the business advantages of Confluent Cloud, Ethan reveals the strategic decisions that...

For enterprises managing sprawling systems and frequent M&A activity, data latency isn’t just inconvenient—it’s a blocker to business value. In this episode, Joe Pardi, Senior Director of Global Data Engineering at Covetrus, explains how his team replaced fragile data pipelines with a robust real-time data streaming architecture that enables instant decisions  across the entire enterprise. The Cov...

Agentic AI is transforming how modern systems interact with data, and Airy is at the forefront with its real-time approach. In this episode, Steffen Hoellinger, Co-founder and CEO of Airy, discusses the transformative impact of agentic AI for enterprises and why real-time data streaming is a crucial component. From Apache Flink® and Apache Kafka® to the importance of focusing on core business chal...

What does real transformation look like when the stakes are high? Todd Smitala, Technology Solutions Architect at the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), shares how his journey of modernizing data system support 27,000 union members. With the legacy infrastructure crumbling under peak traffic during a high-volume union vote, Todd’s team turned to cloud-based real-time streaming w...

Whether you're an executive setting the strategy or an architect building the backbone, alignment is the key to turning transformation from a buzzword into results. Rick Hernandez, principal technical architect at EY, shares how to unlock shared vision and turn it into enterprise-wide data streaming success.  In this episode, Rick joins Joseph to explore how organizations can connect leadership am...

Want your real-time data streaming initiative to stick? Success hinges on more than pipelines—it’s about people, governance, and business impacts. Jeffrey Johnathon Jennings (J3), managing principal at signalRoom, shares how to bring it all together. In this episode, J3 shares how he’s used impactful proofs of concepts to demonstrate value early, then scaled effectively through shift left with gov...

Despite its value, legacy data can feel like a roadblock in a fast-paced digital world—Henry Schein One is clearing the path forward with real-time data streaming. In this episode, Chris Kapp, Software Architect at Henry Schein One (HS1), shares how his team modernizes data management to stay competitive and unlock real-time insights. You’ll learn about: How tagging strategy, immutable audit log,...