Confluent conducted a survey of over 350 organizations across 47 countries, finding that 86% are increasing their use of Apache Kafka, with many using it in the public cloud and for stream processing and data integration. The survey also highlighted growing adoption of microservices, IoT, and monitoring, with companies using Kafka to build data pipelines and core business applications. Confluent has introduced a Kafka certification program to address talent shortages, and a new release of Apache Kafka 3.8.0 is available, featuring several new features and improvements. With the growth of streaming platforms like Kafka, there is an increasing need for experts in these technologies, as companies are adopting microservices and building distributed architectures.