Azure Databricks release notes · May 2026

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May 2026#

  • Compliance security profile required for HIPAA, HITRUST, and IRAP — May 30 · Azure · Upcoming Starting on September 1, 2026, the compliance security profile will be required to process data protected under HIPAA, HITRUST, and IRAP. See Compliance security profile.
  • Databricks Runtime 18: May 29, 2026 — May 29 · Azure · Runtime Structured Streaming deduplication with NaN keys: Structured Streaming deduplication now treats NaN (Not-a-Number) values that have different bit patterns as duplicates when a double or float column is used as a deduplication key.
  • Query-based connectors for Lakeflow Connect are now generally available — May 29 · Azure · Product Query-based connectors in Lakeflow Connect are now generally available. Query-based connectors ingest data from databases by querying the source directly using a cursor column, without requiring change data capture (CDC) configuration or an ingestion gateway.
  • Databricks Apps horizontal scaling (Beta) — May 29 · Azure · Product You can now run a Databricks app across multiple instances behind a single app URL. Horizontal scaling provides higher availability, zero-downtime deployments, and session affinity, which routes every request from a given user to the same instance so the app can keep per-user…
  • Lakeflow Designer updates for May 29, 2026 — May 29 · Azure · Product The following updates were made to Lakeflow Designer: Bidirectional AI-generated descriptions: Each operator now displays an AI-generated description of what it does. Editing the description reconfigures the operator.
  • Dashboard enhancements and bug fixes — May 28 · Azure · AI/BI Banded rows in tables: Tables can now display banded rows. Custom geographies in maps: Custom geographies are now available in choropleth and point maps. See Custom geographic data. Genie Code for dashboard authoring: Genie Code for dashboard authoring is now generally available.
  • Genie Agent (formerly Genie Space) enhancements and bug fixes — May 28 · Azure · AI/BI Agent mode thinking traces (Public Preview): Agent mode thinking traces now cite the definitions applied to answer questions. For example, "best selling product" is defined as the product with the most total sales.
  • Genie One enhancements — May 28 · Azure · AI/BI Genie One now has a Managed MCP Server (Beta). Any agent can ask natural-language data questions across Genie Agents (formerly Genie Spaces) and Unity Catalog data and receive grounded answers. See Available managed servers.
  • Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 now available as a Databricks-hosted model — May 28 · Azure · Product Databricks Model Serving now supports Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 as a Databricks-hosted model. To access this model, use: Foundation Model APIs pay-per-token Query reasoning models Query vision models
  • Cross-engine attribute-based access controls (Beta) — May 28 · Azure · Product External engines can now read Unity Catalog managed tables (Delta and Iceberg) with attribute-based access controls (ABAC), row filters, and column masks enforced server-side. See Cross-engine attribute-based access controls (ABAC).
  • Real-time mode in Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow, and the update_flow API are now available (Public Preview) — May 27 · Azure · Product Real-time mode in Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow is now in Public Preview. Achieve end-to-end latency as low as five milliseconds for operational streaming workloads such as fraud detection, real-time personalization, and instant decision-making.
  • Google Drive managed ingestion connector (Beta) — May 27 · Azure · Product The Google Drive connector in Lakeflow Connect is now available in Beta. The connector allows you to ingest files from Google Drive into Azure Databricks.
  • Workspace admin setting for serverless notebook execution timeout — May 27 · Azure · Product Workspace admins can now set the default execution timeout for serverless notebooks in the workspace admin settings, replacing the previous manual override process.
  • Refresh policies and EXPLAIN CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW for materialized views are now generally available — May 27 · Azure · Product Refresh policies and the EXPLAIN CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW statement are now generally available for materialized views. Use refresh policies to control when Azure Databricks performs incremental or full refresh, optimizing cost and predictability.
  • Databricks SQL version 2026.15 is now available in Preview — May 26 · Azure · SQL Databricks SQL version 2026.15 is now available in the Preview channel. Review the following section to learn about new features, behavioral changes, and bug fixes.
  • Removed legacy Assistant slash commands — May 26 · Azure · Product The /settings and /rename slash commands are no longer available in the notebook Genie Code Assistant chat pane. Adjust notebook settings and rename notebooks from the notebook UI instead.
  • Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow parameters are now in Beta — May 26 · Azure · Product Pipeline parameters let you define key-value pairs at the pipeline level and reference them from SQL source code using named parameter syntax. See Use parameters with pipelines.
  • Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (05/26) — May 26 · Azure · Product New maintenance updates are available for supported Databricks Runtime versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements.
  • Genie Code Agent mode is now available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled — May 25 · Azure · Product Genie Code Agent mode is now available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled and HIPAA controls selected. With Agent mode, Genie Code can automate multiple steps from a single prompt, including retrieving relevant assets, generating and running…
  • Databricks Runtime 18 and Databricks Runtime 18 for Machine Learning are in Beta — May 22 · Azure · Product Databricks Runtime 18 and Databricks Runtime 18 for Machine Learning are now in Beta, powered by Apache Spark 4.1.0. Databricks Runtime 18 is the first release to use a unified release notes format.
  • Dashboard enhancements and bug fixes — May 21 · Azure · AI/BI Import BI workbooks (Beta): Add a Tableau or Power BI file to Genie Code and it builds an AI/BI dashboard that replicates your visualizations. See Import BI files using Genie Code. Open-source fonts: Over 20 new open-source fonts are now available as defaults.
  • Genie One enhancements — May 21 · Azure · AI/BI Direct link to associated dashboard: Genie One now surfaces a direct link to the associated dashboard when hovering over entities in the chat pane. Ask Genie on the workspace homepage: Ask Genie has been added to the workspace homepage. See Homepage.
  • Genie Agent (formerly Genie Space) enhancements and bug fixes — May 21 · Azure · AI/BI Fields replaces Dimensions: Genie Agents (formerly Genie Spaces) now uses Fields instead of Dimensions in the metric view and SQL expressions interfaces. See Define SQL expressions.
  • Postgres password authentication is now disabled by default for new Lakebase projects — May 21 · Azure · Other New Lakebase projects now have native Postgres password authentication disabled by default. Existing projects are unaffected. To allow native Postgres roles to connect with static passwords, enable password connections in project settings. See Manage password connections.
  • Workspace sidebar navigation updates — May 21 · Azure · Product The workspace sidebar navigation has updated section groupings: A new Analytics section groups Dashboards, Genie Agents, and Alerts. The SQL section is renamed to Lakehouse and contains SQL Editor, Queries, Query History, and SQL Warehouses.
  • Unity Catalog managed Apache Iceberg tables, foreign Apache Iceberg tables, and Apache Iceberg v3 features are generally available — May 21 · Azure · Product The following Apache Iceberg capabilities in Unity Catalog are now generally available: Unity Catalog managed Iceberg tables: Create and manage Iceberg tables in Unity Catalog using Databricks Runtime, Databricks SQL, or external Iceberg-compatible engines.
  • Databricks CLI is now GA — May 21 · Azure · Product The Databricks CLI is now generally available (GA). As part of this release, the CLI has been updated to store user-to-machine (U2M) tokens in OS-native secure storage. See Token storage. For information about the Databricks CLI, see Databricks CLI.
  • Instance events and instance pools system tables are now available (Public Preview) — May 21 · Azure · Product The system.compute.instance_events and system.compute.instance_pools system tables are now in Public Preview. Use these tables to track state transitions of classic compute instances and the full history of instance pool configurations across your account.
  • Customer-managed keys for Lakebase available in all AWS and Azure regions — May 20 · Azure · Other Customer-managed keys (CMK) for Lakebase are now available in all Lakebase regions on AWS and Azure. CMK encrypts Lakebase project data at rest using a key your organization owns in its cloud KMS. CMK is available for new Lakebase projects. See Customer-managed keys for Lakebase.
  • Lakebase now supports compute sizes up to 64 CU (128 GB) — May 20 · Azure · Other Lakebase now supports compute sizes up to 64 CU (128 GB RAM), up from the previous maximum of 32 CU (64 GB RAM). Larger workloads can now use dynamic scaling. See Autoscaling.
  • Vector Search storage-optimized endpoints are GA — May 20 · Azure · Product Vector Search storage-optimized endpoints are now generally available. Storage-optimized endpoints have a larger capacity (over one billion vectors at dimension 768) and provide 10-20x faster indexing than standard endpoints. Pricing is optimized for the larger number of vectors.
  • Fixed LOD expression syntax update for metric views — May 20 · Azure · Product Fixed level of detail (LOD) expressions in metric views are now defined directly in the expr field of a dimension using SQL window functions, replacing the previous two-step approach of pre-computing values in the source query.
  • Serve custom LLMs with Custom Model Serving (Beta) — May 20 · Azure · Product You can now serve custom and fine-tuned LLMs on Azure Databricks with a vLLM engine, including multimodal models and PEFT recipes that Foundation Model APIs does not support. Custom LLM Serving is in Beta. See Serve custom LLMs with Custom Model Serving.
  • Authenticate as a service principal using OAuth U2M (Beta) — May 20 · Azure · Product You can now use the OAuth U2M flow to obtain tokens as a service principal's identity instead of your own user account. You must have the Service Principal Manager role on the service principal. See Authenticate as a service principal using OAuth U2M.
  • Customer-managed keys now support MLflow managed evaluation features — May 19 · Azure · Product You can now use the following MLflow managed evaluation features in workspaces encrypted with customer-managed keys (CMK): Production monitoring of AI apps with MLflow 3 scorers. The Review App for collecting expert feedback on traces. Evaluation datasets.
  • Agent Bricks Supervisor Agent now supports nesting supervisor agents as subagent tools — May 19 · Azure · Product You can now add another Supervisor Agent as a subagent tool, enabling nested multi-agent orchestration. See Use Supervisor Agent to create a coordinated multi-agent system.
  • Databricks Container Services for standard compute is now available (Beta) — May 19 · Azure · Product Databricks Container Services for standard compute is now in Beta. You can now specify a Docker image when creating standard compute on Databricks Runtime 18.3 or later, allowing you to use custom containers in shared compute environments.
  • Lakeflow Designer updates — May 19 · Azure · Product The following updates were made to Lakeflow Designer: Enabled by default: Lakeflow Designer is now enabled by default for all free edition, premium, and enterprise tier workspaces. To get started, click +New in the sidebar and select Visual data prep.
  • Edits to resources in the UI now automatically update YAML — May 19 · Azure · Product Edits to jobs and pipeline settings in the UI now automatically update YAML. See Edit bundle resources.
  • Azure Databricks Add-in for Excel support for all compliance security profile standards — May 19 · Azure · Product The Azure Databricks Add-in for Excel (Public Preview) now supports all compliance security profile standards supported by Azure Databricks. For more, see Compliance security profile and Connect to Azure Databricks from Microsoft Excel.
  • Databricks Runtime 18: May 18, 2026 — May 18 · Azure · Runtime Behavioral changes Review the following changes, which take effect when clusters restart on this runtime. CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE: CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE now preserves existing column and table comments by default. Previously, comments were dropped when recreating a table.
  • Unified runs list is generally available — May 18 · Azure · Product You can now view all of your job and pipeline runs in the updated Runs list. Track all of your pipeline runs in one place and filter by status, time, run-as user, run ID, and error codes in real time.
  • Recover a deleted Lakebase project within 7 days — May 15 · Azure · Other When you delete a Lakebase project, it now enters a soft-deleted state for 7 days before permanent deletion. You can recover the project during that window, restoring all branches, databases, endpoints, and project settings. See Recover a deleted project.
  • Share Genie Code chat threads — May 15 · Azure · Product You can now share Genie Code chat threads with other users, groups, or service principals. Recipients receive read-only access to view the shared chat thread. See Share a chat.
  • Agent Bricks Supervisor Agent now supports Unity Catalog tables as subagent tools — May 15 · Azure · Product You can now add Unity Catalog tables as subagent tools in your Supervisor Agent. See Use Supervisor Agent to create a coordinated multi-agent system.
  • Agent Bricks Supervisor Agent now supports vector search indexes as subagent tools — May 15 · Azure · Product You can now add vector search indexes as subagent tools in your Supervisor Agent. See Use Supervisor Agent to create a coordinated multi-agent system.
  • Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow sinks are now generally available — May 15 · Azure · Product The Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow sink API is now generally available. Use sinks with append flows to write transformed pipeline data to external targets, including Delta tables, Apache Kafka topics, Azure Event Hubs, and custom Python data sources.
  • Dashboard enhancements and bug fixes — May 14 · Azure · AI/BI Error bars on line charts: Line charts now support displaying error bars as bands. Custom SQL measure bug fix (Public Preview): Fixed a bug where a measure defined using the custom SQL option would fail if a dataset-scoped measure didn't specify the full name path.
  • Genie One enhancements and bug fixes — May 14 · Azure · AI/BI Additional chat audit logs in Genie One: Nine new genieChat audit events are now available for granular tracking: mcpToolInvocation, steerGenieChatConversation, updateGenieChatConversationFeedback, cancelGenieChatConversation, getGenieChatConversation, and scheduled task…
  • Genie Agent (formerly Genie Space) enhancements and bug fixes — May 14 · Azure · AI/BI Create API instruction limits raised: The create API now enforces the same limits as the UI for instruction creation. The maximum characters for query text has been raised from 20,000 to 40,000.
  • View run history for scheduled refreshes in Google Sheets — May 14 · Azure · Product You can now view the run history of scheduled refreshes in the Azure Databricks Connector for Google Sheets. Each run shows its Run ID, start time, and success status. See Schedule data refreshes in Google Sheets.
  • Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow environment versions (Beta) — May 14 · Azure · Product Environment versions for Spark Declarative Pipelines on Lakeflow are now in Beta. Configure an environment version on a pipeline to pin the Python language version and set of preinstalled libraries, decoupling your pipeline's Python runtime from Databricks Runtime upgrades.
  • Databricks SQL alerts are now generally available — May 14 · Azure · Product The latest version of Databricks SQL alerts is now generally available. SQL alerts let you monitor data and KPIs by running a query on a schedule, evaluating a condition, and notifying recipients when the condition is met.
  • SQL alert task in Lakeflow Jobs is now in Public Preview — May 14 · Azure · Product The SQL alert task in Lakeflow Jobs, previously in Beta, is now in Public Preview. Use the task to evaluate a Databricks SQL alert as part of a Lakeflow Job. The task returns its evaluation state as a task output value, so downstream tasks can branch on the result.
  • Publish a Unity Catalog catalog to Microsoft Fabric (Beta) — May 14 · Azure · Product You can now publish a Unity Catalog catalog to Microsoft Fabric from Azure Databricks as a read-only mirrored catalog. Fabric users can query Unity Catalog tables with no data movement. See Publish a Unity Catalog catalog to Microsoft Fabric.
  • Version 18.2 — May 13 · Azure · Serverless This serverless compute release roughly corresponds to Databricks Runtime 18.2. New features CREATE OR REPLACE support for temporary tables: CREATE OR REPLACE TEMP TABLE syntax is now supported, allowing you to create or replace temporary tables in a single statement.
  • New Lakebase instances now scale to zero by default — May 13 · Azure · Other New Lakebase instances now scale to zero by default after 24 hours of inactivity, reducing compute costs for idle projects. To learn more about scale to zero, see Scale to zero. To configure scale to zero, see Configure scale to zero.
  • ai_parse_document is now available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled — May 13 · Azure · Product ai_parse_document is now available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled and HIPAA, HITRUST, C5, and TISAX controls selected.
  • Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (05/13) — May 13 · Azure · Product New maintenance updates are available for supported Databricks Runtime versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements.
  • Lakebase Change Data Feed (CDF) is now in Public Preview — May 12 · Azure · Other You can now store every insert, update, and delete on your Lakebase Postgres tables as Unity Catalog managed Delta tables. Lakebase Change Data Feed (CDF) captures row-level changes from the write-ahead log for downstream pipelines, models, and audit, with no external CDC stack…
  • App telemetry for Databricks Apps is now in Public Preview — May 11 · Azure · Product You can now collect traces, logs, and metrics from your Databricks Apps and persist them to Unity Catalog tables using the OpenTelemetry (OTel) protocol. See Configure telemetry for Databricks Apps.
  • HIPAA support for the Azure Databricks Add-in for Excel — May 11 · Azure · Product The Azure Databricks Add-in for Excel (Public Preview) is now available for workspaces with HIPAA compliance across all supported regions. See Connect to Azure Databricks from Microsoft Excel.
  • HubSpot connector (GA) — May 11 · Azure · Product The managed HubSpot connector in Lakeflow Connect is now generally available. The connector allows you to ingest data from HubSpot Marketing Hub into Azure Databricks. See HubSpot connector.
  • Catalog commits are now generally available — May 08 · Azure · Product Catalog commits are now generally available. Catalog commits expand Unity Catalog managed table interoperability, strengthen Unity Catalog governance capabilities, and unlock new features such as multi-statement, multi-table transactions.
  • Dashboard enhancements and bug fixes — May 07 · Azure · AI/BI Improved error messages: Dashboard error messages can now be more easily viewed and copied. Reset draft API: An API is now available for dashboard authors to reset the draft to the last published version.
  • Genie One enhancements — May 07 · Azure · AI/BI Workspace instructions for chat in Genie One: Workspace admins can now create a /Workspace/.genie_workspace_instructions Markdown file file to add custom instructions that apply to all chat conversations in the workspace. See Chat in Genie One.
  • Genie Agent (formerly Genie Space) enhancements — May 07 · Azure · AI/BI Export context as metric view: You can now export the context from a Genie Agent (formerly Genie Space) as a metric view to centrally define your business semantics. See Export a Genie Agent as a metric view.
  • Faster package installs with %uv pip in serverless notebooks — May 07 · Azure · Product You can now use the %uv pip magic command in serverless notebooks on environment version 5 or above as a faster alternative to %pip for Python package management. %uv pip is powered by the uv package manager and shares the same notebook virtual environment as %pip.
  • Standalone pipelines on serverless general compute (Beta) — May 07 · Azure · Product Standalone pipelines, including materialized views and streaming tables, can now be created from a notebook running on serverless general compute. Standalone pipelines (renamed from pipelines on Databricks SQL) can be created using SQL or Python. Standalone pipelines are in Beta.
  • Block identities from your Azure Databricks account with the account access denylist — May 06 · Azure · Product Use the account access denylist to prevent specific users, groups, or service principals from accessing your Azure Databricks account when automatic identity management is enabled. See Deny identities access to your account.
  • Outlook managed ingestion connector (Beta) — May 05 · Azure · Product The Outlook connector in Lakeflow Connect is now available in Beta. The connector allows you to ingest email data from Microsoft Outlook into Azure Databricks. See Outlook connector.
  • Alibaba Cloud Qwen3.5 122B A10B now available as a Databricks-hosted model in Public Preview — May 05 · Azure · Product Model Serving now supports Alibaba Cloud Qwen3.5 122B A10B as a Databricks-hosted model. You can access this model using Foundation Model APIs. Qwen3.5 122B A10B is available in Public Preview. Customers are responsible for ensuring their compliance with applicable terms.
  • AI Runtime 1xH100 accelerator (Beta) — May 05 · Azure · Product AI Runtime now supports the 1xH100 accelerator in Beta. See Hardware options.
  • GitHub managed ingestion connector (Beta) — May 05 · Azure · Product The GitHub connector in Lakeflow Connect is now available in Beta. The connector allows you to ingest data from GitHub into Azure Databricks. See GitHub connector.
  • Smartsheet managed ingestion connector (Beta) — May 05 · Azure · Product The Smartsheet connector in Lakeflow Connect is now available in Beta. The connector allows you to ingest data from Smartsheet into Azure Databricks. See Smartsheet connector.
  • Databricks Runtime 19 will use a unified release model — May 04 · Azure · Upcoming Starting with version 19, Databricks Runtime will use a unified release model. Instead of multiple feature versions (for example, 19.0, 19.1, 19.2), each major version will have a single release notes page.
  • Databricks Runtime 18: May 4, 2026 — May 04 · Azure · Runtime Behavioral changes Review the following changes, which take effect when clusters restart on this runtime. XPath: When evaluating XPath over XML, Azure Databricks no longer loads external Document Type Definitions (DTDs).
  • Databricks Runtime 18.2 is now GA — May 04 · Azure · Product Databricks Runtime 18.2 is now generally available. See Databricks Runtime 18.2 and Databricks Runtime 18.2 for Machine Learning.
  • Lakeflow Pipelines Editor is now generally available — May 04 · Azure · Product The Lakeflow Pipelines Editor is now generally available. The editor offers an agent-first experience with Genie Code for creating, updating, and debugging production pipelines, with your code and Genie Code chat side by side with the pipeline graph and metrics.
  • Upcoming change: Upgrade to Lakebase Autoscaling — May 01 · Azure · Upcoming Azure Databricks is upgrading all Lakebase Provisioned instances to the Lakebase Autoscaling platform. Upgrades begin in June 2026 for customers who have requested them, with remaining instance upgrades continuing in the following weeks.
  • Native data profiling for results tables in the SQL editor — May 01 · Azure · SQL You can now view profiling statistics for columns in results tables in the new Databricks SQL editor. Select column headers and click Open selection details to view profiling statistics.
  • Native data profiling for notebook results tables — May 01 · Azure · Product You can now view profiling statistics for columns in notebook results tables. From a results table, select column headers and click Open selection details to view profiling statistics. This feature is also available in the new Databricks SQL editor. See Select data.
  • Community connectors (Beta) — May 01 · Azure · Product Open-source connectors extend Lakeflow Connect to sources without managed connector support. They're built and maintained by the community. Use a registered connector or create your own. See Community connectors in Lakeflow Connect.
  • Azure UK South now has a dedicated regional control plane — May 01 · Azure · Product Azure UK South now has a dedicated regional control plane in addition to the existing UK West-based control plane. New workspaces created in UK South use the regional control plane and require firewall allowlist entries for the new SCC relay tunnel, Control Plane NAT IPs…
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