At the Cockroach Connect event in San Francisco, hosted by Cockroach Labs during Microsoft Ignite, a panel discussion led by CEO Spencer Kimball explored the profound impacts of AI on technology infrastructure and business operations. Panelists, including investors Peter Fenton, Satish Dharmaraj, and Lucas Swisher, highlighted the significant architectural shifts driven by AI, particularly the need for resilient and globally distributed systems to handle continuously running, autonomous AI workloads. The conversation underscored the tension between speed to market and the necessity for reliable infrastructure, with AI pushing the boundaries of current tech stacks and creating new demands for computational memory and consistency. The panelists also discussed the investment landscape, predicting both failures and opportunities as AI reshapes industries, emphasizing that future success will depend on adopting AI responsibly while ensuring system reliability and security. Additionally, the event featured insights from partners like ClickHouse and Automation Anywhere on leveraging CockroachDB for real-time AI applications and process automation, reflecting the collaborative efforts to build robust data architectures for the AI era.