• BERANDA > Interview-2025 > MongoDB > MongoDB calls itself an ‘AI-ready integrated data platform’ that helps organizations build and innovate themselves by leveraging the power of data. From your perspective, how has data’s role – and that of the database itself – evolved from a back-end utility to now becoming a key driver of innovation?

MongoDB calls itself an ‘AI-ready integrated data platform’ that helps organizations build and innovate themselves by leveraging the power of data. From your perspective, how has data’s role – and that of the database itself – evolved from a back-end utility to now becoming a key driver of innovation?

The evolution is nothing short of a paradigm shift. Historically, the database was viewed as a rigid, passive “system of record”—a back-end utility designed merely to store structured data. This model severely inhibited innovation, as every new product or data source required a lengthy, expensive schema redesign.

Today, data itself is the core commercial asset, and the database has evolved into an active platform for innovation.

1. Flexibility and Speed: The transition to a document data model (native JSON) means the data structure can adapt instantly to business needs, allowing financial institutions to rapidly onboard diverse data, whether it’s payment logs, KYC documents, or real-time market feeds. This flexibility is critical for leveraging modern standards like Open Banking APIs.
2. Unification and Context: The integrated data platform unifies database, search, and analytics services in a single plane. This eliminates costly data silos and powers the 360-degree customer view, which is the foundation for personalized banking experiences, real-time risk assessment, and traditional AI-driven applications like predictive fraud detection.
3. AI and Vector Foundation: The most recent, critical evolution is the ability to directly support Generative AI workloads. A modern database must manage all data types, including vector embeddings, which are vital for processes like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Our native Vector Search capability allows financial firms to integrate proprietary, secure data with Large Language Models (LLMs) for grounded responses. The strategic acquisition of Voyage AI further elevates this by integrating best-in-class embedding and reranking models directly into our platform, ensuring customers can build highly accurate and performant Gen AI applications quickly.
4. Developer Empowerment and Accelerated Modernization: To fully realize the potential of the integrated data platform, organizations must overcome the burden of legacy data infrastructure. To address this critical friction point and further empower both developers and business owners in their transformation journey, we launched the MongoDB Application Modernization Platform (AMP). AMP is an AI-powered solution designed to rapidly and safely transform legacy applications into modern, scalable services. It achieves this by fusing an AI-powered software platform, a proven delivery framework, and expert AMP engineers, helping customers speed up their overall modernization projects by two to three times. By conquering technical debt and simplifying the data layer, we ensure that innovation moves at the speed of the market, not the speed of outdated architecture, thus making developers insanely productive.