As KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 approaches, the conversation in cloud-native circles is shifting from building AI models to running AI applications reliably in production. With CNCF debuting a new AI Inference + Agentic track, much of the attention has gone to GPU scheduling, model serving, and observability. Ajay Khanna, CMO at Yugabyte, says that the data layer underneath is just as critical. Next-generation applications, he says, won’t only serve people. They will also …