Why Data Streaming Is the Secret Weapon for AI Success with Kamal Brar

Oct 8, 2025

Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President at Confluent, shares his journey from Oracle to mastering data streaming. He delves into how real-time data is crucial for AI success, highlighting its role in integrating disparate systems securely. Kamal discusses Confluent's evolution and its significance in India's massive payment infrastructure, enabling efficient AI solutions. He offers insights on navigating data fragmentation and the importance of open-source technologies. From healthcare innovations to the future of payments, his vision shows how data streaming is transforming enterprise landscapes.

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INSIGHT

DSPs Are More Than Kafka

Confluent evolved from Kafka creator into a full data streaming platform combining Kafka, Flink, and Iceberg to serve real-time needs.
This stack enables streaming, processing, and lakehouse interoperability for enterprise-grade data pipelines.

INSIGHT

Streaming Powers AI Inference And Feedback

Real-time streaming supplies inference context and feedback loops that improve AI model responses over time.
Streaming lets enterprises combine public models with proprietary data for accurate, private AI results.

INSIGHT

Fragmentation Blocks AI Adoption

Most enterprises are eager to adopt DSPs for AI but face fragmentation, tech debt, and skill shortages.
Standards-based interoperability, like Kafka protocols and connectors, is the practical unlock.

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"In the context of where Confluent can play a critical part, it's also the interoperable integration with all the respective AI ecosystems. If you think about what AI is doing, it's working across microservices, working across data lakehouses, databases - could be a different endpoint service. Bringing all that together in a secure and consistent manner, constantly serving that information, is where I think it plays the most pivotal role." - Kamal Brar

Fresh out of the studio, Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President of Worldwide ISV and Asia Pacific/Middle East at Confluent, joins us to explore how data streaming platforms are becoming the critical foundation for enterprise AI across the regions. He shares his career journey from Oracle to Confluent, reflecting on his passion for open source technologies and how the LAMP stack era shaped his understanding of real-time data challenges. Kamal explains Confluent's evolution from the category creator of Kafka to a comprehensive data streaming platform combining Kafka, Flink, and Iceberg, emphasizing how real-time data infrastructure enables businesses to harness both public AI models and proprietary enterprise data while maintaining governance and security. He highlights compelling customer stories from India's National Payments Corporation processing billions of UPI transactions daily to healthcare AI applications serving patient needs, showcasing how data streaming solves fragmentation challenges that plague 89% of enterprises attempting AI adoption. Addressing implementation hurdles, he stresses that data infrastructure is the most critical piece for AI success, advocating for standards-based interoperability through Kafka's protocol and Confluent's extensive connector ecosystem to unlock siloed legacy systems. Closing the conversation, Kamal shares his vision for Asia Pacific becoming Confluent's largest growth region, powered by massive-scale innovations in payments, mobile transformation, and AI on the edge for autonomous vehicles and next-generation interfaces.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Kamal Brar
[01:00] Kamal's Career journey from computing to open source
[04:00] Attraction to data streaming and Kafka ecosystem
[07:00] Confluent's mission: data streaming platform leadership
[10:00] Why data streaming is critical for AI
[13:00] Report findings: 89% eager to adopt DSP
[14:00] Data fragmentation remains biggest enterprise challenge
[17:00] Real-time visibility becomes competitive differentiator
[20:00] AI-enabled applications transforming enterprise stack
[24:00] India payments: Kafka powers UPI infrastructure
[27:00] Data governance and security in AI
[33:00] Data infrastructure: foundation for scalable AI
[35:00] Connectors enable seamless system interoperability
[38:00] Interoperability unlocks fragmented enterprise data
[39:00] Asia Pacific driving aggressive regional growth
[42:00] What does great look like for Confluent
[44:00] Closing

Profile: Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President WW ISV [Independent Software Vendor] & Asia Pacific/Middle East, Confluent https://www.confluent.io

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamalbrar

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

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