Database vendor MongoDB embraces GenAI
The vendor has moved quickly to incorporate technologies such as vector search that are integral to generative AI.
MongoDB awakened early to the rapid rise of generative AI and moved quickly to incorporate the new technology into its database platforms.
The vendor -- whose NoSQL database is widely used in financial services, retail, media, healthcare and entertainment industries -- started working on a vector search system soon after OpenAI's groundbreaking release of ChatGPT in November 2022, according to Ben Flast, director of product management at MongoDB. Vector search is critical to building and using GenAI applications.
"We kind of got into it at the point I would say [was] the apex of some of the excitement around it," Flast said on the Targeting AI podcast from Informa TechTarget. "And so far, it's been amazing."
"Fundamentally, at the end of the day, vector search's relevance for ... GenAI and large language models has been its ability to kind of provide semantic search to give the models factual information to ground their responses in," he continued.
In recent years, MongoDB has made some other notable moves on the GenAI front.
The vendor unveiled Atlas Stream Processing a year ago to produce real-time updates of GenAI models. In May, MongoDB revealed that it has adopted the GenAI community's first significant standard, the Model Context Protocol created by GenAI vendor Anthropic.
"With ... MCP, we've really just doubled down on our commitment to the community around use and building applications using AI capabilities," Flast said.
Flast, known as the "resident AI expert" at MongoDB, is enthusiastic about the potential of generative AI and its hot new offshoot, agentic AI, to improve his company's technology.
"Agentic is very exciting. I think it's kind of the new application pattern, if you will, of AI capabilities," he said. "MongoDB is a database company. Our lifeblood is storing and securing and protecting and making durable your data. So we see ourselves relate to agents and agent workflows through that lens."
Shaun Sutner is senior news director for Informa TechTarget's information management team, driving coverage of AI, analytics and data management technologies, and big tech and federal regulation. Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget news writer and podcast host covering AI software and systems. Together, they host the Targeting AI podcast series.
