The rise of artificial intelligence is pushing data platform companies to evolve. New AI-driven use cases require data platforms that are fast, adaptable and scalable to meet changing demands.

“I think the good thing is Couchbase was thinking about this very much well in advance, and it allowed us to get a big head start in the database space in general,” said Matt McDonough (pictured, right), senior vice president of product and partners at Couchbase Inc. “Not only with our vector search capability, which is underpinning everything we’re doing around AI, but also being the first and only vendor to offer it from cloud to edge, across clouds and even on-premise. We continue to make additional enhancements to our core vector search capability that’s helping us provide a market leadership position.”

McDonough and Josh Harbert (left), senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Couchbase, spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier for the Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards 2025 interview series, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Couchbase’s success combining AI-powered capabilities, high-performance architecture and a commitment to addressing real-world business challenges.

The power of a unified data platform

A significant milestone in Couchbase’s journey is its new Columnar analytics capability, which is the first of its kind for JSON-native analytics. This feature enhances data processing by eliminating inefficiencies in traditional data transformations, significantly reducing latency and costs. This streamlined approach allows businesses to gain insights faster and improve decision-making in real time.

“I think ultimately with agents in general, they want to be able to access data both from traditional operational stores, but also analytics stores,” McDonough said. “With our data platform, we operate that capability across. Then, I can jump into AI Services, which is what we launched late last year and now into preview. But I think the general theme is [that] we continue to be running fast at full speed on AI and excited about that.”

The rise of AI-driven applications has created a demand for databases that can handle diverse and complex workloads. Couchbase has positioned itself as a database solution that unifies transactional, analytical, mobile and AI services under a single umbrella, according to Harbert. In so doing, Couchbase received a CUBEd award for “Most Innovative Database.”

“We think it has the opportunity to really change and perhaps even transform every application that exists in the enterprise … critical applications,” he said. “I think everybody would know that if you’re working on an app and you’re a developer [or] an architect, it’s probably pretty critical to you. But when you think about the next three, four [or] five years, it’s become more important than ever to think about a unified data platform because [you] have to have the performance.”

Bucking the specialization trend — either in fully managed cloud services or mobile databases —Couchbase supports a wide array of deployments. This level of versatility ensures that companies can smoothly integrate AI into their existing infrastructures while also preparing for future advancements in AI.

“I think we are unique in this way as we’re the only data platform that is unifying transactional mobile analytics and AI services,” Harbert said. “It doesn’t exist outside of Couchbase. From our perspective, that is the unique value proposition. We know that [chief information officers] and architects and developers are rethinking their tech stack. They know they have to be able to rely on a vendor that can do all of those things, plus have the complex ecosystem and integration surrounding it.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage for the Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards 2025 interview series: 

Photo: SiliconANGLE