For most data engineering teams, managing pipeline reliability often means waiting for an alert, manually tracing failures across distributed jobs and clusters, and fixing problems after they’ve already hit the business. Agentic AI needs the data to be there, clean and on time. A pipeline that fails silently or delivers stale data doesn’t just break a dashboard — it breaks the AI system depending on it.

That gap is what Definity, a Chicago-based data pipeline operations startup, is building into: embedding agents directly inside the Spark or DBT driver to act during a pipeline run, not after it. One enterprise customer identified 33% of its optimization opportunities in the first week of deployment and cut troubleshooting and optimization effort by 70%, according to Definity. The company also claims customers are resolving complex Spark issues up to 10x faster.

“You need three big things for agentic data operations: full stack context that is real time and production aware. Control of the pipeline. And the ability to validate in a feedback loop. Without that, you can be outside looking in and read only,” Roy Daniel, CEO and co-founder of Definity told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview.

The company on Wednesday announced that it has raised $12 million in Series A financing led by GreatPoint Ventures, with participation from Dynatrace and existing investors StageOne Ventures and Hyde Park Venture Partners.

Why existing pipeline monitoring breaks down at scale

Existing tools approach the problem from outside the execution layer — Datadog, which acquired data quality monitor Metaplane last year, Databricks system tables, and platforms like Unravel Data and Acceldata all read metrics after a job completes. Dynatrace has monitoring capabilities; it also participated in Definity’s Series A.

The Definity approach is differentiated from other options in the way the solution is architected. According to Daniel, that means by the time a platform monitoring tool surfaces a problem, the pipeline has already run — and the failure, the wasted compute or the bad data is already downstream.

“It’s always after the fact,” Daniel said. “By the time you know something happened, it already happened.”

How Definity’s in-execution agents work

The core architectural difference is where the agent sits — inside the pipeline rather than watching from outside it.

Inline instrumentation. The Definity system installs a JVM agent directly inside the pipeline execution layer via a single line of code, running below the platform layer and pulling execution data directly from Spark.

Execution context during the run. The agent captures query execution behavior, memory pressure, data skew, shuffle patterns and infrastructure utilization as the pipeline runs. It also infers lineage between pipelines and tables dynamically — no predefined data catalog is required.

Intervention, not just observation. The agent can modify resource allocation mid-run, stop a job before bad data propagates or preempt a pipeline based on upstream data conditions. Daniel described one production deployment where the agent detected that an upstream job had been preempted and the input table it was supposed to write was stale — and stopped the downstream pipeline before it started, before bad data reached any dependent system.

What is and isn’t real time. Detection and prevention are real time. Root cause analysis and optimization recommendations run on demand when an engineer queries the assistant, with full execution context already assembled.

Overhead and data residency. The agent adds approximately one second of compute on an hour-long run. Only metadata transmits externally; full on-premises deployment is available for environments where no metadata can leave the perimeter.

What in-execution intelligence looks like in a production environment

One early user of the Definity platform is Nexxen, an ad tech platform running large-scale Spark pipelines  for mission-critical advertising workloads, running on-premises.

Dennis Meyer, Director of Data Engineering at Nexxen, told VentureBeat that the core problem he was facing was not pipeline failures but the accumulating cost of inefficiency in an environment with no elastic cloud capacity to absorb waste.

“The main challenge wasn’t about pipelines breaking, but about managing an increasingly complex and large-scale environment,” Meyer said. “Because we operate on-prem, we don’t have the flexibility of instant elasticity, so inefficiencies have a direct cost impact.”

Existing monitoring tools gave Nexxen partial visibility but not enough to act on systematically. “We had existing monitoring tools in place, but needed full-stack visibility to understand workload behavior holistically and to systematically prioritize optimizations,” Meyer said.

Nexxen deployed Definity with no pipeline code changes. According to Meyer, the team identified 33% of its optimization opportunities within the first week, and engineering effort on troubleshooting and optimization dropped by 70%. The platform freed infrastructure capacity, allowing the team to support workload growth without additional hardware investment.

“The key shift was moving from reactive troubleshooting to proactive, continuous optimization,” Meyer said. “At scale, the biggest gap often isn’t tooling — it’s actionable visibility.”

What this means for enterprise data teams

For data engineering teams running production Spark environments, the shift from reactive monitoring to in-execution intelligence has architectural and organizational implications worth thinking through.

Pipeline ops is becoming an AI infrastructure problem. Data pipelines that previously supported analytics now carry AI workloads with direct business dependencies. Failures that were once an inconvenience are now blocking production AI delivery.

Troubleshooting time is a recoverable cost. According to Meyer, Nexxen cut engineering effort on troubleshooting and optimization by 70% after deploying Definity. For teams running lean, that time going back to the roadmap is the most direct near-term case for evaluating this category.

As a professional photographer for many years, I’ve photographed everything from editorial photo stories to elaborate product photography along with landscapes, weddings, travel and street photography in my personal work. And if you’ll allow me to blow my own trumpet, I’ve also been shortlisted for numerous major industry awards for my work in those areas. From my experinece I’ve learned that there are three types of camera that all photographers need to have in their photography setups. And I’m not talking about brands, such as a Sony or a Canon, or even sensor types, like a full-frame or APS C. I mean a deeper level of camera selection — the types of camera that offer fundamentally different ways of approaching your photography and allow you to create your best work, no matter what genre you like to dabble in.  

While these types could mean three physically different cameras, they could also be covered by two cameras, or even just one. Let’s dive in with camera type number one.

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The workhorse

This is the camera that gets stuff done. It’s likely packed with modern camera technology. It’s fast to use, shoots at high speed, has lightning-fast autofocus, possibly image stabilization, and almost certainly uses interchangeable lenses. It may well be full frame. It’s the camera that pros the world over use for all kinds of photo shoots — just like I have — from weddings to cars to products to pets … whatever. It’s a jack-of-all-trades camera that you can trust will do anything you need it to any time you need it to do it.

For me right now, that’s the Canon R5. Fast, high resolution. Tons of features. A flippy screen. And it shoots awesome video. Endless lens and accessory options. It’s the camera I trust for most of my professional work because I know it can deliver and I know I can deliver when I’m using it. Previously it’s been the Canon 5DIV and before that it was the Canon 6D. For you, it might be the Sony A7RV, the Nikon Z8 or the Panasonic Lumix S5II. 

It might not be the latest model around, but whether it was launched in 2026 or 2006 it’ll tick all the boxes you need for a busy day of photography whether you’re a professional or an enthusiastic amateur. The workhorse is a camera that’ll do everything you need from it and it’ll do it well. But it’s likely also quite big and probably quite expensive. While it’s great that there are so many lenses to choose from, maybe sometimes you don’t want the burden of choice. So that’s when you need…

The everyday carry

It’s a small digital. A compact point and shoot, ideally. Almost certainly a fixed lens. The Fuji X100VI or the Ricoh GRIII. Even the relatively ancient Sony RX1R or the Leica Q3. The Q3 isn’t that small really but I actually love my Q3 43 as an everyday carry. It’ll be the type of camera you can quickly grab when you’re heading out in a hurry without thinking about lenses. When you don’t want a backpack full of gear when camping, but do want lots of fun shots of you and your mates around the campfire. It’s the camera you can always carry. It’s the social camera you don’t mind getting in among the chaos of life. It could feasibly even just be your phone camera.

Read more: Best Phone Camera in 2026

It’s probably the lightest camera you own that allows you to comfortably wear it around your neck while you’re walking around the streets of some old Italian town. It’s maybe even small enough to slip into your pocket when you go into a bar and easily slip back out when the light comes in beautifully through the pub window and you want to catch a quick shot. 

It’s a camera for quick shooting and for social shooting — maybe even grubby from-the-hip or spray and pray shooting. It’s probably the camera you’ve captured the most memories on but it’s also probably not the camera you’ve used to take your favorite fine art photos. Oh no, that’ll be this one.

The artful one

It might not technically be your best camera. It might not have the most features. It might not be the smallest, the fastest or the easiest to use. But it’s the camera that inspires you the most. It’s the one that makes you feel creative just by looking at it. It’s the one you choose to take when you drive for hours to one location in the slim hope that you might have good light that evening. 

It’s the camera that makes you slow down and think about the art in your images rather than rattling off a thousand mediocre snaps. It’s the camera that’s responsible for the work you’re most proud of. 

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This camera could be a lot of things. It could be a film camera, be it 35mm or 120 medium format. That alone would slow you down and make you take a more methodical approach unless you’re happy to spend a fortune on film. Or maybe it’s something like a modern digital medium format like a Fuji GFX  or my personal favorite, Hasselblad’s 907X 100C — that weird little box gave me such a buzz when I used it that it was genuinely difficult to part with it when I had to send it back. 

It’s a camera you might not even own yet and maybe don’t even know you want. I didn’t know I was at all interested in film photography until only quite recently, yet I gave a man a fistful of cash in a car park to buy his medium format Mamiya 645 Pro, which I’ve really enjoyed putting numerous roles of film through. Life throws things your way sometimes. So maybe this camera is one you’ll need to be a bit open minded about. But it’s also the one you might be most glad you got in the years to come. 

Three types, one camera

Between the workhorse, the everyday carry and the artful one, you have yourself covered in any aspect of photography, no matter what genre you like to dabble in. 

Of course, some cameras can be two things; an artistically inspiring camera that’s also an everyday carry. Hell, some cameras could be all three rolled up in one. And that’s absolutely fine — as long as that one camera ticks each of those three boxes for you. It’s really up to you to interpret whether your camera is small enough to be your everyday carry or inspiring enough to be your artful one. But this rule certainly doesn’t mean you need to go out and buy two additional cameras.

My Canon R5 with a compact prime on it certainly can be all three. It was a great everyday carry on a trip to Sicily and it inspired me to take artistic photos that I adored and that I later licensed to go into a luxury travel book meaning it was also my professional workhorse. So on that one trip alone it ticked all three boxes for me. But it’s not always all of those things.

My Leica Q3 43 was a superb everyday carry camera on my recent travels to the Swedish Arctic and Barcelona. It was the camera I took on multiple ferry trips to various remote Scottish islands and it was the camera I took when I went to hang with my brother for his 40th birthday. And yeah, it too is also a camera that excites me, that inspires me and urges me to be more creative with my shooting. Because it’s a damn Leica and what photographer doesn’t feel excited to take photos when they’re holding a Leica? 

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But it’s my recent forays into film that have taught me even more about slowing down and crafting an image and the culmination of that has led me to getting the Mamiya 645 as my artful camera, which completes my personal holy trinity. 

And sure, as my work and my style develops and other cameras come and go, that trio of cameras will likely change over the years but the basic building blocks of workhorse, everyday carry and the artful one will always need to be met by whatever cameras I have. 

RVs tend to run on autopilot from year to year, but a specific model from the Feixiang Group changes things up with a simple design change. Enter the Shuxinge series, often known as the Flying RV, as this 2026 FX RV S800 is built on an Iveco Eurocargo chassis, keeping it under six meters in length and easy to operate on the road. With the simple press of a button, the entire structure transforms into a two-story living space.

First, four electric hydraulic legs drop down and lock solidly, each with enough power to support a ten-ton load while keeping the entire rig steady in the face of wind or rugged terrain. Next, the upper half of the RV rises smoothly on its own hydraulics, so it’s not just the legs that get lifted; the entire vehicle raises by a metre and a half, from 3.45 metres on the road to more than five metres when parked. It’s also a dramatic change, with the living area increasing from a claustrophobic 18.72 square meters on the lower level to a luxurious 36.44 square meters when the upper level and cab are included. While the slide-outs do expand the walls, it’s still rather spacious down there.

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The main lounge area is filled with four opulent leather captain chairs, each with heating, ventilation, and massage controls, similar to those found in a premium car. The seats are not only comfortable, but they also include a number of extra features, such as a table that pulls out for meals or cards. The teak-style PVC flooring underfoot is easy to clean, and hidden speakers beneath the seats link to a full karaoke system that is ready to rock when your guests want to sing. The kitchen slide-out on the opposite side of the space is outfitted with a two-burner induction stove, a deep sink, a fridge with separate freezer, and all the cabinets you could possibly need, some of which open from both inside and out, which is a great touch.

Meanwhile, the pass-through door on the kitchen panel swings down to show an outdoor kitchen setup ideal for grilling or serving snacks. The bathroom, situated away behind the eating area, is a big benefit, equipped with a macerating toilet, handheld shower wand, sink, and a few storage shelves for miscellaneous items.

If you need to do a load of laundry, don’t worry; there’s a compact 3.5-kilo washing machine tucked away beneath the back staircase, accessible by turning up a panel. Above the cab, there’s a raised sleeping alcove ideal for children or a couple of adults, equipped with windows, a roof hatch, reading lights, and a few shelves to keep your books and other belongings within easy reach. The finest feature is that everything fits on the lower level while allowing the car to be driven with a conventional license.

Solid hardwood steps with built-in lights will take you to the second story once it is fully extended. There’s plenty of head room up top, as well as a decent-sized bed on an orthopaedic mattress, and you’d be amazed how much space there is to walk around. The windows really open to let in some fresh air, while the air conditioning and ceiling fan keep it cozy. You’re also not far from the loo, as there is a separate bathroom on the upper floor with a toilet, fold-down sink, and self-adjusting plumbing. Canvas walls fold flat when traveling yet close tightly when lifted, providing seclusion without the need to get up to go downstairs at night.

The power comes from 1,280 watts of solar panels on the roof, which feed into a large lithium battery bank and a 5,000-watt inverter, allowing lights, appliances, and air conditioning to operate for extended periods of time without the need to connect to the grid. You get 260 gallons of fresh water to play with, plus an additional 160 liters for grey water, as well as a 100-liter fuel tank and a 3-liter diesel engine with an automatic transmission to handle the journey. Plus, all of the electronics are attractive and user-friendly; even in a compact space, the cameras and digital controls make things simple.

Google’s next Tensor chip has just surfaced in a fresh leak, and the early details are painting a mixed picture. The details shared by Mystic Leaks of the upcoming Pixel 11 point to a redesigned CPU, which is built around ARM’s newer C1-series cores. The rumour also hints at a high-performance “Ultra” core clocked at around 4.11GHz, paired with multiple “Pro” cores clocked at 3.38GHz for better performance overall.

But it’s not all good news.

How the Tensor G6 is improving

Google’s Tensor chips have historically lagged behind Qualcomm and Apple in pure CPU horsepower. So the focus on performance with the newer ARM cores could help the next-gen Google mobile AP finally close that gap. Aside from this, there are also broader improvements expected on the Tensor G6. A big one is the move toward TSMC’s advanced manufacturing process. The upcoming chip could be based on the 2nm process, which could bring better efficiency, improved thermal performance, and better battery life.

In the past, many Pixel users have complained about various issues plaguing their Google smartphones, especially regarding heat and power efficiency. In other words, the Tensor G6 is getting more than just a speed boost.

Gaming might not be the focus

All of the aforementioned improvements are great, but there’s still a big question mark on the graphics side. The lake claims that Google may switch to a PowerVR-based GPU architecture for the Tensor G6. This might be more of a name change than an actual upgrade, with early reports suggesting little to no improvement in GPU performance compared to the previous generation. You probably won’t notice or feel the difference in everyday use. Though gaming or graphics-heavy workloads could remain a weakness for Google’s next-gen flagship phones.

Google has bigger plans

Apart from the CPU and GPU, Google might be working on other components of the upcoming SoC. The Pixel 11 might move away from Samsung modems in favor of MediaTek’s M90 chip for better connectivity and power efficiency. Rumors also point to a new Titan M3 security chip and an enhancement for on-device AI processing.

The uneven upgrade story is hard to ignore. Still, Google has never really advertised gaming as a focus with its phones, and it might just be sticking to that narrative.