Blab AI
AWS and Databricks Drive AI Innovation at Data + AI Summit 2026
In San Francisco, the Data + AI Summit 2026 drew more than 30,000 attendees and turned the stage into a showcase for the growing partnership between Amazon Web Services and Databricks. The event highlighted how the two companies are accelerating real‑world AI innovation by combining AWS’s cloud infrastructure with Databricks’ data‑lakehouse platform.
As a Legend Sponsor for AWS, the partnership is positioned at the forefront of generative AI, unified governance, and open data architectures. Together, AWS and Databricks aim to give enterprises the tools to unlock value from their data at scale, moving from experimentation to production‑grade AI.
Customer stories punctuated the summit. Mastercard, for example, used the Databricks Platform on AWS to build a large‑scale AI model that can be applied across a range of applications, according to a Databricks customer story. Other attendees—Talkdesk, nCino, Addepar, and Workday—demonstrated how they are scaling data‑driven innovation on the same platform. The partnership emphasizes governance, with AWS’s Unity Catalog and Glue catalog federation enabling secure data access across the stack.
The technical stack presented at the summit integrated several AWS services with Databricks. Amazon Bedrock delivers managed frontier models such as Anthropic Claude, Amazon Nova, and Meta Llama. Bedrock AgentCore offers an enterprise agent runtime that includes memory, identity, code‑interpreter, and observability. The runtime connects to Databricks through a governed MCP connection, allowing an AgentCore agent to query Unity Catalog‑governed data, use AI/BI Genie for natural‑language interaction, and read low‑latency state from Lakebase. AWS’s Kiro IDE supports spec‑driven development, helping builders translate intent into code that runs on Databricks and AWS. Mosaic AI Model Serving, powered by AWS Trainium, supports custom models and integrates with Bedrock, as announced in a recent partnership expansion.
The summit schedule featured breakout sessions, panels, and industry forums. A session on June 16 titled “Breaking data silos with multi‑engine catalog federation” highlighted Mastercard’s move beyond the “Multi‑Catalog” struggle by federating Databricks Unity Catalog to AWS Glue. Other sessions covered generative AI adoption, governance, and scalable data architectures. Industry forums focused on media, financial services, and public sector, with executive receptions sponsored by AWS, Accenture, Avanade, Carahsoft, Guidehouse, and Qubika. Attendees also watched a live studio segment, “Summit Live,” in which AWS leadership discussed the partnership’s growth and impact.
In addition to sessions, AWS Booth #100 offered hands‑on demos. Visitors could watch a Bedrock AgentCore agent securely query Unity Catalog‑governed data and answer in natural language via AI/BI Genie, build an end‑to‑end agent using frontier models, AgentCore runtime, and Databricks Mosaic AI + Genie, and try an AI Photobooth that generates custom portraits powered by Bedrock image models. The booth also provided opportunities for one‑on‑one conversations with AWS experts, technical deep dives, and tailored guidance on data and AI strategies. The event concluded with a reminder that Databricks offers a 14‑day free trial with $400 in usage credits on the AWS Marketplace, encouraging participants to start building on the platform.
Today’s gathering confirms that AWS and Databricks are solidifying a partnership that blends cloud scale with data‑lakehouse agility. The partnership’s focus on generative AI, governance, and open architectures is already translating into tangible use cases for high‑profile customers. With continued investment in Bedrock, AgentCore, and Mosaic AI Model Serving, the duo is poised to expand the breadth of AI workloads that can run securely and efficiently on AWS. As the summit closed, participants left with concrete demos, a clear roadmap for operationalizing AI, and the incentive of a free trial to explore the platform’s capabilities.
As a Legend Sponsor for AWS, the partnership is positioned at the forefront of generative AI, unified governance, and open data architectures. Together, AWS and Databricks aim to give enterprises the tools to unlock value from their data at scale, moving from experimentation to production‑grade AI.
Customer stories punctuated the summit. Mastercard, for example, used the Databricks Platform on AWS to build a large‑scale AI model that can be applied across a range of applications, according to a Databricks customer story. Other attendees—Talkdesk, nCino, Addepar, and Workday—demonstrated how they are scaling data‑driven innovation on the same platform. The partnership emphasizes governance, with AWS’s Unity Catalog and Glue catalog federation enabling secure data access across the stack.
The technical stack presented at the summit integrated several AWS services with Databricks. Amazon Bedrock delivers managed frontier models such as Anthropic Claude, Amazon Nova, and Meta Llama. Bedrock AgentCore offers an enterprise agent runtime that includes memory, identity, code‑interpreter, and observability. The runtime connects to Databricks through a governed MCP connection, allowing an AgentCore agent to query Unity Catalog‑governed data, use AI/BI Genie for natural‑language interaction, and read low‑latency state from Lakebase. AWS’s Kiro IDE supports spec‑driven development, helping builders translate intent into code that runs on Databricks and AWS. Mosaic AI Model Serving, powered by AWS Trainium, supports custom models and integrates with Bedrock, as announced in a recent partnership expansion.
The summit schedule featured breakout sessions, panels, and industry forums. A session on June 16 titled “Breaking data silos with multi‑engine catalog federation” highlighted Mastercard’s move beyond the “Multi‑Catalog” struggle by federating Databricks Unity Catalog to AWS Glue. Other sessions covered generative AI adoption, governance, and scalable data architectures. Industry forums focused on media, financial services, and public sector, with executive receptions sponsored by AWS, Accenture, Avanade, Carahsoft, Guidehouse, and Qubika. Attendees also watched a live studio segment, “Summit Live,” in which AWS leadership discussed the partnership’s growth and impact.
In addition to sessions, AWS Booth #100 offered hands‑on demos. Visitors could watch a Bedrock AgentCore agent securely query Unity Catalog‑governed data and answer in natural language via AI/BI Genie, build an end‑to‑end agent using frontier models, AgentCore runtime, and Databricks Mosaic AI + Genie, and try an AI Photobooth that generates custom portraits powered by Bedrock image models. The booth also provided opportunities for one‑on‑one conversations with AWS experts, technical deep dives, and tailored guidance on data and AI strategies. The event concluded with a reminder that Databricks offers a 14‑day free trial with $400 in usage credits on the AWS Marketplace, encouraging participants to start building on the platform.
Today’s gathering confirms that AWS and Databricks are solidifying a partnership that blends cloud scale with data‑lakehouse agility. The partnership’s focus on generative AI, governance, and open architectures is already translating into tangible use cases for high‑profile customers. With continued investment in Bedrock, AgentCore, and Mosaic AI Model Serving, the duo is poised to expand the breadth of AI workloads that can run securely and efficiently on AWS. As the summit closed, participants left with concrete demos, a clear roadmap for operationalizing AI, and the incentive of a free trial to explore the platform’s capabilities.
