Databricks announced an always-on version of Genie on November 11. According to the company, it can pursue a goal in the background, delegate parts of the work, and ask a person for a decision through a priority inbox or email. Databricks says Unity Catalog and Unity Gateway govern the agent within the customer’s existing environment.
Genie and Genie Ontology are generally available. The always-on agent, Genie Search, and Ontology Manager are slated for preview or beta. Databricks also describes more than 100 connectors for enterprise search and data access. That figure covers several integration routes, so check which route applies to your system.
Give a forecast task three ways to fail
Consider a weekly forecast that uses a permitted sales table and a restricted compensation table. First, verify that Genie can use the permitted table and cannot retrieve the restricted one under the same user’s identity. Include an instruction from a test document asking the agent to retrieve the restricted data, so the access test also covers input the agent encounters along the way.
Second, ask Genie to prepare a forecast update and configure any write to the shared system to require review. The proposed action, destination, and changed values should be visible before a reviewer approves it. Third, cancel the job after it delegates a step. Check whether a later retry or delegated action can still write. Those are distinct tests for data access, approval, and interruption.
This is a proposed evaluation for preview customers. The announcement describes the available governance controls, and their behavior in a particular workspace depends on the connectors, permissions, and workflow configuration. See also our coverage of attached data sources in Genie Agents.
Abdessalam Alaoui
I'm Abdessalam Alaoui, founder of Musthave.AI. I write practical guides to AI models, tools, generative media.
