Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

2026 Predictions: What's Next for Data Streaming and AI | Life Is But A Stream

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, Confluent), Adi Polak (Director of Developer Advocacy & Experience, Confluent), and independent analyst, Sanjeev Mohan, to break down critical insights from Confluent’s 2026 Predictions Report.

Powering agentic software quality with MCP servers | From the Bear Cave

In this From the Bear Cave session, Dan Faulkner, CEO of SmartBear, and Vineeta Puranik, CTO/CPO of SmartBear, discuss why agentic automation is becoming essential in software development and delivery, how MCP Server enables connected autonomy across the SDLC, and what this transformation means for business outcomes and the future of human + AI collaboration.

SpotCache: Scale AI-ready data without cloud-spend surprises

AI is changing how work gets done. But for many data leaders, it’s also creating a new challenge: managing the cloud bill. As more people (and more AI agents) query data, cloud data warehouse (CDW) spend can spike fast. Costs become harder to predict, and teams end up making tradeoffs—scaling AI insights or staying within budget. That tension creates a real bottleneck on the path to becoming AI-ready.

AI in QA: What leading quality experts want every team to know

Our goal with the Tricentis blog is to distill insights that help QA professionals navigate the massive, AI-driven transformation happening across the software delivery landscape. To that end, I reached out to experts across Tricentis, from product and services to marketing and strategy, to hear what they’re really thinking about AI in QA right now. This group brings decades of experience building testing products, guiding enterprise transformations, and shaping how organizations adopt AI.

What is an MCP? Breaking Down the Model Context Protocol

70% of teams are already integrating generative AI tools into their daily workflows, according to our 2025 State of Game Technology Report. Now more than ever, teams are looking to connect their AI tools to the services and applications they rely on to get work done. To address this issue, the industry has begun to standardize using the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to connect their existing tools and LLMs like Claude, GPT, and Gemini.

Building Secure AI Agents with Kong's MCP Proxy and Volcano SDK

Modern AI applications are no longer just about sending prompts to an LLM and returning text. As soon as AI systems need to interact with real business data, internal APIs, or operational workflows, the problem becomes one of orchestration, security, and control. The challenge is to build secure AI agents without embedding fragile logic or exposing sensitive systems directly to a model. This is where a layered architecture using Volcano SDK, DataKit, and Kong MCP Proxy becomes compelling.

Best Practices for AI in CI/CD QA Pipelines

AI transforms CI/CD testing from reactive bug detection into proactive quality assurance that accelerates release cycles while improving software reliability. Start embedding AI into your testing workflows now because teams that wait will struggle to match the velocity of competitors who already have. Continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines have become the backbone of modern software delivery.

How to build a Copilot agent

A customer recently shared their debugging workflow with me. When an error shows up in Honeybadger, they import it to Linear, manually add context about where to look in the codebase, then assign GitHub Copilot to investigate. It works, but they asked a good question: could Copilot just access Honeybadger directly? The answer is yes—and it's easier than I expected.

Build Agentic Workflows: Expose API Orchestration as MCP Tools with Kong AI Gateway

Learn how to expose an API orchestration workflow as an MCP server using Kong AI Gateway, configure semantic guardrails, and build an agent with the Volcano SDK. We onboard GPT-4 behind /llm, orchestrate with DataKit, and debug MCP tools in Insomnia—end-to-end without adding server code.