Releasesby GlyphAuto pool mapping for OAuth identity pools across Kafka, REST, Schema Registry, ksqlDB
Auto pool mapping makes the identity pool ID optional for Kafka clients 2.15+, Kafka REST API, Schema Registry clients and REST API, and ksqlDB REST API.
Also shipped Jul 8, 2026Confluent in July 2026 →
Object metadata column is now in Public Preview
The _object_metadata column is now in Public Preview. The _object_metadata column is a hidden metadata column that exposes object-level properties for objects in cloud storage, including MIME type, ETag, user-defined key-value metadata, system-defined metadata, and object tags. It is available starting from Databricks Runtime 18.1.
Genie products now use pay-as-you-go pricing
Starting July 8, 2026 at 00:00 UTC, Genie products, including Genie Agents , Genie Code , and Genie One , are billed following a pay-as-you-go pricing model that includes 150 Databricks units (DBUs) of free large language model (LLM) usage every month, equivalent to about $10.50 in the US East region.
Google Gemini 2.5 Flash and Pro are scheduled for retirement
Google Gemini 2.5 Flash and Gemini 2.5 Pro will be retired on October 2, 2026. The recommended replacement models are Gemini 3.1 Pro or Gemini 3.5 Flash. See Deprecated and retired models for migration guidance.
Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 is scheduled for retirement
Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 will be retired on October 9, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the recommended replacement. See Deprecated and retired models for migration guidance.
Restrict access to AI Functions with Unity Catalog permissions (Public Preview)
You can now use Unity Catalog permissions to restrict which task-specific AI Functions your organization can access, independent of foundation model access. Contact your account team to enable this feature. See AI Functions Unity Catalog permissions .
Genie Agents now uses pay-as-you-go pricing
Starting July 8, 2026 at 00:00 UTC, Genie Agents is billed following a pay-as-you-go pricing model that includes 150 DBUs of free large language model (LLM) usage every month, equivalent to about $10.50 in the US East region. Usage beyond the free amount is billed in DBUs, reflecting the underlying LLM models and agents that power each Genie Agents session.
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mTLS CRL size limit cut to 1.5 MB; public CAs no longer issue client certs
The mTLS certificate revocation list size limit drops from 10 MB to 1.5 MB per CRL, and public CAs no longer support issuing client certificates.
Google Cloud Spanner CDC Source (Debezium) connector available
The fully managed connector streams row-level inserts, updates, and deletes from Spanner change streams to Kafka topics in near-real time.
Snowflake Sink connector version 3.4.0
Version 3.4.0 of the fully managed Snowflake Sink connector exposes snowflake.streaming.max.client.lag to adjust flush frequency in streaming mode.
Kafka cluster deletion protection
Opt-in safeguard that blocks deletion of a Kafka cluster until an authorized user disables it. Available via Console, CLI, REST API, or Terraform.
Confluent Gateway 1.3.0 adds centralized governance enforcement (Early Access)
Gateway validates messages and enforces data governance with Schema Registry, with four policy types (schema ID, deep validation, field-level and full-payload encryption) and per-topic overrides. Docker only during EA.
Confluent Gateway supports OAuth-to-OAuth authentication swapping
Gateway supports SASL/OAUTHBEARER as a client authentication mechanism for authentication swapping between two different identity providers.
Confluent Gateway supports CyberArk Conjur secret store
Confluent Cloud Gateway 1.3.0 supports CyberArk Conjur as a secret store provider.
Confluent Gateway processes fencing filter before auth swap
Gateway now processes fencing filter requests before the authentication swap filter, so fenced clients receive BROKER_NOT_AVAILABLE immediately.