Newcomer Pod What the AI Boom Means for Databases and Enterprise Software
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Jan 26, 2026 
Ankur Bhatt, Head of AI at Rippling, explains Rippling’s employee graph, AI productization, agent design, and permissions for enterprise AI. CJ Desai, CEO of MongoDB, outlines why MongoDB is suited for AI-native apps, its model-agnostic strategy, and handling unstructured data. They discuss building AI agents across payroll, IT, and finance, identity and accountability, and enterprise search and assistants.
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Unstructured Data Is A Natural AI Foundation
- MongoDB's flexible, unstructured-data platform fits AI-native apps naturally.
- CJ Desai says schema-flexibility and semantic retrieval make MongoDB a foundation for AI.
Vertical AI Apps Will Break Out Next
- AI product cycles are accelerating and some verticals will lead the next wave.
- CJ Desai expects specialized healthcare and insurance apps to break out in 2026.
Stay Model-Agnostic At The Data Layer
- Be model-agnostic at the data layer and support multiple models for customers.
- CJ Desai recommends focusing on best embeddings and retrieval while letting customers choose models.