Why databases are the next bottleneck to scale | Ory x CockroachDB

Description

Live session recording of a virtual roundtable discussion on infrastructure for AI with Isaac Wong, EVP of R&D at Cockroach Labs, and Mickey Martin, Head of Sales Engineering at Ory. Moderated by Cockroach Labs Technical Evangelist Rob Reid. AI and agentic workloads are growing faster than backend systems were ever designed to handle, overwhelming traditional databases, coordination layers, and latency budgets. New survey data from 1,000+ engineering and AI leaders shows that 83% believe the biggest emerging failure point isn’t GPUs or models but the operational data layer beneath them, as AI will exceed their data-infrastructure capacity in 12–18 months.* In this exclusive virtual roundtable discussion, we reveal why building for AI at scale requires first-principles architecture, not bolt-on features, and how distributed, resilient systems are defining what it means to be “AI-ready.” *From The State of AI Infrastructure Report 2026: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/guides/state-of-ai/