Buckle up, we’re past the AI hype. Now, it’s about making intelligent systems that act on our behalf. In 2025, AI isn’t just a tool– it’s becoming our core way of operating, powered by real-time data. How we stream, manage and monetize that data will define the next generation of business. Here, we zoom into four examples of what autonomous real-time intelligence could look like in the coming year.

The need to democratize and share data inside and outside your organization, as a real-time data stream, has never been more in demand. Treating real-time data as a product, and adopting Data Mesh practices, is the way forward. Here, we explain the concept through a real-life example of an airline building applications that process data across different domains.

Democratizing and sharing data inside and outside your organization, as a real-time data stream, has never been more in demand. Treating data as-a-product and adopting Data Mesh practices is leading the way. Here, we explain the concept through a real-life example of an airline building applications that process data across different domains.

Organizations today face complex data challenges as they scale, with more distributed data architectures and a growing number of teams building streaming applications. They will need to implement Data Mesh principles for sharing data across business domains, ensure data sovereignty across different jurisdictions and clouds, and maintain real-time operations.

Every enterprise is modernizing their business systems and applications to respond to real-time data. Within the next few years, we predict that most of an enterprise's data products will be built using a streaming fabric – a rich tapestry of real-time data, abstracted from the infrastructure it runs on. This streaming fabric spans not just one Apache Kafka cluster, but dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.