Proactive, Always-on Assistant Brings Enterprise-grade Security and Context
- New second-generation Genie is an always-on enterprise agent that works autonomously, manages long-running work, and proactively brings decisions to people through a new priority inbox and email
- Genie Ontology, the agentic ontology for enterprise AI, automatically maintains understanding of how a company operates across its data, people, and processes to provide horizontal context and deliver accurate, trustworthy answers and actions
- Genie Search expands to 100+ enterprise data sources via Genie and Genie Ontology, including the lakehouse and key business apps like Google Drive, Jira, and Confluence
SAN FRANCISCO — November 11, 2026 —Databricks, the Data and AI company, today announced the second generation of Genie that changes how people get work done: Genie is now an always-on, autonomous agent for enterprise work. Employees can give Genie a goal and trust it to keep work moving. Genie takes ownership of the work, delegates to subagents when needed, tracks progress, follows up on missing inputs, and reaches out when a person needs to make a decision. A new inbox highlights what needs attention, and Genie emails users when they are away.
Work is moving faster, and enterprises now expect AI to take real tasks off their plates. But much of what it takes to do complex projects well lives across multiple platforms and even in people’s heads: which accounts need attention, what triggers an escalation, who approves a change. An enterprise assistant can only take that on if it knows the business, can reach the systems teams already use, and follows correct permissions and access controls.
Genie is built for how companies actually work. Every action is grounded in Genie Ontology, an agentic ontology which captures a company’s horizontal context, from definitions and metrics to the people and processes behind them, and keeps it current as the business changes. Genie proactively works across all data, structured or unstructured, analytical or operational, inside or outside Databricks to recommend the next best action. Since it runs within a company’s existing Databricks environment, Genie is governed by Unity Catalog and Unity Gateway, so every action stays within the controls companies already have in place.
“Genie has made me a 10x more productive CEO, and now it doesn’t wait for me to ask,” said Ali Ghodsi, Co-founder and CEO of Databricks. “Every day, Genie keeps up with my inbox, preps me for meetings, and runs in the background, coming back only when it needs a decision. It can do that because it knows how our company works: what we mean by revenue, which numbers are official, and who can see what. That’s the power of horizontal context, and Genie delivers it.”
Genie: Always-On Jobs, Proactive Work and Governed Actions
Genie now operates in autonomous mode, running in the background using its own compute. This means Genie can help with daily personal tasks like staying on top of email or Slack and prepping for meetings, or it can take on bigger responsibilities like keeping a quarterly forecast on track. Users share a goal and clear boundaries, and Genie will manage the task and proactively reach out when it needs their input. Marketers can ask Genie to monitor GEO performance and suggest relevant content. Customer success teams can ask Genie to monitor customer usage patterns and notify the account team of meaningful shifts. Executives can ask Genie to track revenue trends and top customer feature requests and deliver a weekly brief on what’s changing and why. Key features include:
- Sub-agents:Genie delegates tasks to multiple sub-agents to manage work in parallel.
- Priority inbox: Genie now opens to an inbox of items that need attention, so users can easily see what needs a decision instead of digging through past conversations.
- Email alerts: Each new alert from Genie arrives as its own unread email. Updates on that alert go to the same thread, so the inbox doesn’t fill up, and each email links back into the Genie app.
- Governed by default: Every action stays within Unity Catalog permissions and Unity Gateway approval rules and budgets, and is fully auditable.
Genie Search: Enterprise Search Built for AI
Genie Search gives people and agents one governed way to find information across the lakehouse and the documents, tickets, and chats in business apps. Because it works through Genie Ontology, it doesn’t just locate a document; it computes and interprets it within business context, within existing permissions, and with sources that teams can inspect. Key features include:
- Search knowledge where it lives: Index content in the tools teams already use like Google Drive, Jira, and Confluence, without moving or copying it. Ingest it through Lakeflow Connect or query applications live through MCP. Databricks now offers 100+ connectors that support a variety of data connection strategies for key business apps: ingest data into the lakehouse, index it in place, or federate queries to it via MCP.
- Built for agents:Agents can find information across structured and unstructured data and applications in a single search instead of checking each app separately, which cuts unnecessary tool calls and token use, making agents faster and cheaper to run.
- Connect once, govern everywhere: Genie Search runs within companies’ existing Databricks environments, so there’s no separate search infrastructure to manage, and follows access rules already set in Unity Catalog.
- Open ecosystem:Leverage Genie MCP to enable AI tools and agents to use Genie Ontology and Genie Search to find and access enterprise knowledge.
Additional New Genie Capabilities
- Ontology Manager: A new experience allows teams to manage and govern business context, with recommendations that flag frequently asked concepts that require refinement.
- Expanded Genie Ontology sources: Business logic from external BI tools allows Genie Ontology to extend its understanding of analytical data, while a new organizational structure connector provides both context and an experience for understanding people and reporting relationships.
- Live, governed artifacts: Genie can now generate dynamic, data-driven slides, dashboards, and interactive reports that are grounded in governed data and stay current as that data changes.
- Expanded Genie Agents: Agents can now work across PDFs, contracts, and slides in Unity Catalog volumes alongside governed tables, with no separate vector index. New MCP connectors such as Atlassian, Google Drive and GitHub, along with OpenSharing for Genie Agents, allow teams to collaborate with partners without exposing underlying data.
- Genie everywhere:Teams can interact with Genie wherever they work, whether that is on a web browser, mobile app, email, and collaboration and AI tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot Cowork, and Grok Bot.
“Teams make their best decisions when trusted context shows up in the flow of work. With Genie Agents now connected to Slack, sales, finance, and operations teams can go from question to action without leaving the conversation. We’re thrilled to work alongside Databricks to bring governed, reliable insights to where the work happens.” —Jaime DeLanghe, Chief Product Officer, Slack
“AI is only as good as the definitions behind it, so we built our Genie Agents on agreed, governed definitions, and now every answer matches. We expanded self-service analytics by putting plain-language access to our data in the hands of teams across the business, not just analysts, so people can act on numbers they trust.” —Marlissa Wong, Director, Data Engineering, Headspace
“With Genie constantly analyzing performance signals, we’ve improved programmatic ad ROI and reduced the time to identify ad winners on Meta by 75%. Unity Gateway gives us the flexibility to use the best model for each job without managing separate integrations.” —Alan Khalil, Associate Director, Data Science and Engineering, HelloFresh
Availability
Genie and Genie Ontology are generally available to all customers. Genie Search, Ontology Manager and the new always-on Genie are coming soon to preview and beta programs. Read more about Genie on the Databricks blog.
Tune in to Data + AI Live on November 11, 2026 at 9 AM PT to watch Ali Ghodsi introduce the new Genie and discuss frontier intelligence in the enterprise with OpenAI’s Greg Brockman. Watch on LinkedIn Live and YouTube.
About Databricks
Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 20,000 organizations worldwide — including adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard, Rivian, Unilever and 70% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data + AI Platform to unify their data, analytics and AI. Built on an open source foundation, the platform gives teams a simple way to build AI that understands their business context. The platform includes the products Lakebase, Genie, Unity Gateway, Agent Bricks, Lakeflow, Lakehouse and Unity Catalog. To learn more, follow Databricks on LinkedIn, X, YouTube and Instagram.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the new Databricks Genie?
The second generation of Databricks Genie is an always-on, autonomous AI agent for enterprise work. Employees give Genie a goal, and it takes ownership of the work: delegating to subagents, tracking progress, following up on missing inputs and reaching out through a priority inbox and email when a person needs to make a decision. Genie runs within a company’s existing Databricks environment, governed by Unity Catalog and Unity Gateway.
What is Genie Ontology?
Genie Ontology is an agentic ontology that captures a company’s horizontal context, including its definitions, metrics, people and processes, and keeps it current as the business changes. It learns from dashboards, queries, notebooks, external BI tools and an organizational structure connector. Every action Genie takes is grounded in Genie Ontology, so answers and recommendations reflect how the business actually works.
What is Genie Search?
Genie Search is enterprise search built for AI. It gives people and agents one governed way to find information across structured and unstructured data, from tables in the lakehouse to documents, tickets and chats in business apps like Google Drive, Jira and Confluence. Databricks offers 100+ connectors so teams can index content in place, ingest it through Lakeflow Connect or query applications live through MCP. Agents get what they need in a single search instead of calling each app separately, which cuts tool calls and token use.
How does Genie keep enterprise data secure?
Genie runs within a company’s existing Databricks environment and follows the permissions already set in Unity Catalog, so it only sees what each person is allowed to see. Unity Gateway lets admins decide which tools Genie can use, set approval rules and spending caps, and trace every action. Every action is fully auditable.
Can Genie work with ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools?
Yes. Through Genie MCP, AI tools and agents like ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot Cowork and Grok Bot can use Genie Ontology and Genie Search to find and access enterprise knowledge with the same governed context and permissions.
What can Genie do autonomously?
Genie operates in autonomous mode, running in the background on its own compute. It can handle daily tasks like staying on top of email, Slack and meeting prep, or take on bigger responsibilities like keeping a quarterly forecast on track, monitoring customer usage patterns, tracking revenue trends or analyzing employee survey responses. Genie delegates to subagents, runs on a schedule or when triggered, and reaches out when it needs a person’s input.
What is Ontology Manager?
Ontology Manager is a new experience that lets teams manage and govern business context in one place. It flags frequently asked concepts that need a governed definition, so teams can improve the context Genie uses without starting from scratch.
Is Genie generally available?
Genie and Genie Ontology are generally available to all Databricks customers. Genie Search, Ontology Manager and the new always-on Genie are coming soon to preview and beta programs.
How much does Genie cost?
Genie is part of the Databricks Data + AI Platform. Customers pay for what they use, not per seat, and admins can set spending limits by team or by user through Unity Gateway.
