Databricks Breaking News: 2026 Week 3: 12 January 2026 to 18 January 2026
Summary
Databricks Runtime 18 is now Generally Available, offering Spark 4.1 and improved identifier/parameter maker availability. New features include Lakeflow Connect for row filtering during ingestion, Codex models (GBT Codex Max and Mini) for code development, and Databricks One improvements like favorites and data preview in Gen Rooms.
Summary generated by brickster.ai from the video transcript.
More from databricks MVP Hubert Dudek
EventsDatabricks News: Lakeflow Designer, UV package manager, DABs templates, Genie scheduled tasks
Databricks introduces Lakeflow Designer for visual data preparation, though its generated code is messy; a workaround uses Genie to convert the visual workflow into clean PySpark/SQL notebooks. The UV package manager significantly speeds up package installations on Databricks serverless runtimes, and DABs templates allow for standardized, customizable Databricks Asset Bundles.
NewsDatabricks News: watermark-based incremental ingestion, MCP in AI gateway, Genie, Vector Search
Databricks now offers watermark-based incremental ingestion from SQL databases without change data feed, allowing for efficient data updates and soft deletion handling. The AI Gateway supports custom MCP servers, enabling integration with external APIs like GitHub for enhanced AI application development.
NewsDatabricks News: AUTO CDC, Workspace skills, Ask Genie, and Type widening
Databricks introduces Auto CDC for efficient change data feed processing, notebook and govern tags for better organization, and workspace skills for Ask Genie to customize its responses. Databricks also adds type widening for streaming tables, allowing data types to automatically adjust to larger incoming values.
NewsDatabricks News: Excel add-in, Metrics Views UI, and Quality Monitoring
Databricks announced Lake Watch for cybersecurity, new dynamic dropdown filters in SQL editor, and improved quality monitoring with null value scanning and automated alerts. The video also demonstrates a new UI for defining metric views, an Excel add-in for data preview and import, and the ability to publish dashboards as public web pages.
NewsDatabricks News: Free Tier, Multi-statement transactions, Declarative Automation Bundles, Genie Code
Databricks now offers a free tier for Lakeflow Connect, providing 100 DBUs per day per workspace, and has introduced multi-statement transactions in Unity Catalog that ensure atomicity with rollback capabilities. The platform also announced a Databricks One mobile app, a new AI runtime with pre-installed tools for GPU use cases, and enhanced Genie Code that understands project structure for automated development tasks. Additionally, Databricks Asset Bundles are now called Declarative Automation Bundles and use a faster direct engine, and a new 5X-Large SQL warehouse is available for processing terabytes of data.
NewsDatabricks News: unit testing, OneLake federation, scoped access tokens
Databricks now allows creating Unity Catalog domains for business users, running JAR tasks on serverless compute, and federating OneLake data directly into Databricks. The platform also introduces in-workspace Python unit testing, new data connectors like HubSpot and TikTok Ads, and scoped personal access tokens for enhanced security.