All Data and AI Weekly #225-19 Jan 2026

#mcp #llm #agentic #ai

All Data and AI Weekly #225-19 Jan 2026

( AI, Data, NiFi, Iceberg, Polaris, Streamlit, Flink, Kafka, Python, Java, SQL, MCP, LLM, RAG, Cortex AI, AISQL, Search, Unstructured Data )

Sorry for missing the Flink talk on Thursday, there was a death in my family.

❄️ Tim Spann's New Stuff ❄️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PkA6rzcsEo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYwvfK3U6LA

https://github.com/tspannhw/AllDataAndAIWeekly/blob/main/talks/15JanMeetup_Real%20Time%20AI%20Pipeline%20Architectures%20with%20Flink%20SQL%2C%20NiFi%2C%20Kafka%20and%20Iceberg.pdf

🚀 Top Headlines

OpenAI Introduces GPT-5.2 Codex

A massive leap forward in code generation and reasoning. This release promises to change how we approach automated development pipelines.

Read the Announcement

Snowflake & OpenAI: Cortex AI Evolution

Snowflake has officially announced deep integration with OpenAI for Cortex AI, streamlining the ability to bring LLMs to your data without moving it.

Read the Blog

Snowflake to Acquire Observe for $1 Billion A major move in the observability space. Snowflake announces its intent to acquire Observe to deliver AI-powered observability at enterprise scale, bridging the gap between data and action. Press Release | News Coverage | Why Observe?

2025 Databases Retrospective Professor Andy Pavlo’s annual retrospective is out. A must-read summary of the winners, losers, and major shifts in the database landscape over the last year. Read the Blog

Data Engineering in 2026: From ETL to Autonomy An outlook on how the role of the data engineer is shifting from building pipelines to managing autonomous data systems. Read Article

❄️ Snowflake Technical Deep Dives

Real-Time CDC: A guide to low-latency Postgres CDC to Snowflake for real-time AI analytics. Medium Guide
OpenFlow Integration:
- Syncing Postgres to Native Tables
- Turbocharge Your Pipeline
Iceberg & Interop: Connect Databricks Unity Catalog to Snowflake via Iceberg REST. Tutorial
Optimization:
- Fast Table Comparison with Hash Functions
- Replication & Failover Strategies
Apps: Build a News Sentiment Analytics app completely with prompts. Tutorial
Community:
- Submit Your Snowflake Story
- SnowGram (Instagram on Snowflake?)

❄️ Snowflake Ecosystem Updates

The Snowflake platform continues to evolve with a focus on governance and data apps.

Trust Center & Classification: New features for sensitive data classification are now live. Release Notes
Data Clean Rooms (DCR): Updates to DCR functionality for secure data sharing. Documentation
Schema Evolution: Snowpipe Streaming now supports schema evolution, reducing pipeline breakage. Learn More
Performance Tuning:
- Warehouse Sizing Guide
- Query Insights - Specific recommendations for per-query improvements.
Views & Lineage:
- External Lineage Guide
- Views, Materialized Views, and Dynamic Tables

🧊 Data Engineering: Iceberg, Flink & Streaming

Real-time architectures are shifting heavily toward open table formats.

Deep Dive PDF: Real-Time AI Pipeline Architectures with Flink SQL, NiFi, Kafka, and Iceberg. View Slides
Apache Polaris: Mapping legacy and heterogeneous data lakes in Polaris. Blog Post
Implementation Guides:

🤖 AI Agents & LLM Tooling

The "Agentic" workflow is becoming the standard for enterprise AI.

Connecting Agents: Bridging Snowflake Cortex to the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol. Medium Article | GitHub Repo
Healthcare Agents: A curated list of awesome AI agents for healthcare. GitHub Repo
Asset Management: Agentic AI for Asset Management guide. GitHub Repo
Pocket TTS: High-quality text-to-speech generation. Kyutai Labs
Java for AI: Java 25 features JBang notebooks and GraalPy for interactive learning. JavaPro Article

🤖 AI Agents, Cortex & LLMs

Cortex & Agents Resources:
Learning & Frameworks:
- 30 Days of AI: A streamlined learning path for building AI apps with Streamlit. GitHub
- TruLens + LlamaIndex: Evaluating Agent workflows. Notebook
- Auto-Claude: Automating tasks with Claude. GitHub
- LLMRouter: Optimized routing for LLM queries. GitHub
- VideoRAG: Retrieval Augmented Generation for video content. GitHub

🛡️ Security & OSINT Toolkit

A large collection of Open Source Intelligence and security tools dropped this week.

IntelOwl: Open source Intelligence Management Platform. GitHub
DataSploit: OSINT Framework to perform reconnaissance. GitHub
TheHive Cortex: Analyzers for the Security Orchestration platform (Note: Distinct from Snowflake Cortex). GitHub
Osweep: Open Source Wireless Security Auditing. GitHub
Web Check: All-in-one website OSINT tool. Website
Snowflake Security:
- SI Cybersecurity Challenge
- Log to Action

🛠 Developer Toolkit

New utilities to speed up your workflow.

Data Lake Explorer: A tool for navigating your data lake. GitHub
Frogmouth: A markdown viewer for the terminal. GitHub
Glow: Render markdown on the CLI. GitHub
Bat: A cat clone with wings (syntax highlighting). GitHub
Kangaroo: SQL client for popular databases. GitHub

🛠 Developer Utilities

Taws: A Terminal User Interface (TUI) for AWS. GitHub
Hardwood: A Kafka log viewer/tool. GitHub
Gastown: Steve Yegge's latest project. GitHub
VSCodium: Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VS Code. Why VSCodium?
Quantum Tunnel: Expose your local service to the internet. Docs
Strix: GitHub | YT Playlist Downloader: GitHub

📺 Watchlist & Events

Webinar: Architect for AI with Open Formats (AWS + Snowflake). Watch Here
Upcoming Meetup: NY Apache Flink Meetup. RSVP Here
Video: Java 25 & Interactive Learning
Video: Latest AI Talks
Webinar: Build Your Own Enterprise Intelligence Agent (Jan 8, 2026). Watch Replay
Event: Retail AI @ Hakkoda. Event Page
Video: Featured Tech Talk

Data

🍭 2026: SNACK-AI

As we look forward in 2026, we are introducing SNACK-AI. This architectural pattern is designed to power AI applications at any scale—from mobile phones and robots to massive enterprise clusters.

SNACK-AI integrates: