April 2026

These features and Azure Databricks platform improvements were released in April 2026.

Note

Releases are staged. Your Azure Databricks account might not be updated until a week or more after the initial release date.

Disabling tasks in Lakeflow Jobs is now GA

April 30, 2026

You can now disable a task in a Azure Databricks Lakeflow job to skip it at run time without removing it from the job. Disabled tasks keep their configuration and run history, so you can re-enable them later without rebuilding the task. See Disabled tasks in Lakeflow Jobs.

Agent Bricks Supervisor Agent now supports custom MCP servers and custom agents on Databricks Apps

April 30, 2026

You can now add custom MCP servers and custom agents hosted in Databricks Apps as subagents in your Supervisor Agent. See Use Supervisor Agent to create a coordinated multi-agent system.

MLflow trace storage in Unity Catalog is now in Public Preview

April 30, 2026

MLflow trace storage in Unity Catalog tables, previously in Beta, is now in Public Preview. Traces are stored in OpenTelemetry (OTel) format, access is governed through Unity Catalog schema and table permissions, and you can query traces from Databricks SQL or the MLflow Python SDK. For supported regions, see Features with limited regional availability.

See Store OpenTelemetry traces in Unity Catalog and Query OpenTelemetry traces stored in Unity Catalog.

Configure private endpoints for serverless compute in Azure China

April 29, 2026

You can now configure private connectivity from serverless compute to Azure resources in Azure China (Mooncake). Create a network connectivity configuration (NCC) in the China North 3 region, attach it to your workspace, and add private endpoint rules for supported Azure resources. See Configure private connectivity to Azure resources and Manage private endpoint rules.

Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (04/29)

April 29, 2026

New maintenance updates are available for supported Databricks Runtime versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements. For details, see:

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is now generally available

April 28, 2026

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is now generally available (GA). ABAC is an access control model in Unity Catalog that uses governed tags applied to data assets to dynamically enforce row filter and column mask policies on tables, materialized views, and streaming tables. Policies are attached at the catalog, schema, or table level and are automatically applied to all securables with matching tag attributes, enabling consistent access rules at scale without per-table configuration.

As part of this GA release, when a user queries a view or function that accesses ABAC-protected tables, row filters and column masks are now evaluated using the session user's identity (the identity of the person running the query) rather than the view or function owner's identity. This aligns ABAC behavior with table-level row-level security and column masking. Users querying through views and functions still do not need direct privileges on the underlying tables.

This is a breaking change. If Azure Databricks contacted you as a potentially impacted customer, you have a three-month grace period to adapt your policies. If you were not contacted or are a new customer, the new session identity behavior is already the default for your account. See ABAC policies on views.

See Attribute-based access control in Unity Catalog.

5X-Large SQL warehouse size (Public Preview)

April 28, 2026

The 5X-Large cluster size for serverless and pro SQL warehouses is in Public Preview in all regions. The 5X-Large size provides 512 workers. Workspace admins can control access to this feature from the Previews page. See Manage Azure Databricks previews. For more information on SQL warehouse sizing, see SQL warehouse sizing, scaling, and queuing behavior.

Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines updates are retained for 60 days

April 28, 2026

Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines update history is now retained for 60 days, up from 30 days. The extended retention applies to updates shown in the pipeline UI and returned by the Pipelines REST API.

Connect Azure Databricks to on-premises resources using an SSH reverse tunnel

April 28, 2026

You can now connect Azure Databricks classic and serverless compute to on-premises resources without opening inbound firewall access by configuring an SSH reverse tunnel with proxy VMs in Azure. See Connect to on-premises resources using an SSH reverse tunnel.

Tag Unity Catalog functions

April 28, 2026

Functions are now a supported securable object type for tagging in Unity Catalog. Use SET TAG and UNSET TAG to add and remove tags from functions. You can use tags to search for functions and certify or deprecate functions. See Apply tags to Unity Catalog securable objects.

Zendesk Support connector (GA)

April 28, 2026

The Zendesk Support connector in Lakeflow Connect is now generally available. See Zendesk Support connector overview.

Recently Resolved Incidents section in Data Quality Monitoring (Beta)

April 27, 2026

The Data Quality Monitoring dashboard now includes a Recently Resolved Incidents section, currently in Beta. This section shows tables that were previously unhealthy but have since automatically recovered to a healthy status, including the time of resolution. Use this view to identify self-healing data quality issues and confirm that known problems have been fixed. See View recently resolved incidents.

Confluence connector (GA)

April 25, 2026

The Confluence connector in Lakeflow Connect is now Generally Available. See Confluence connector.

Manage Supervisor Agent programmatically with the Databricks SDK (Beta)

April 24, 2026

You can now use the Databricks SDK for Python to create and manage Supervisor Agent and their tools. See Use Supervisor Agent to create a coordinated multi-agent system.

Azure Databricks Excel Add-in requires workspace preview enablement

April 24, 2026

To use the Azure Databricks Excel Add-in, a workspace admin must now enable the Excel Connector preview from the Previews page. See Set up the Azure Databricks Excel Add-in and Manage Azure Databricks previews.

Workspace base environments are now generally available

April 24, 2026

Workspace base environments are now generally available. Workspace base environments let workspace admins create and manage pre-built, cached environments for serverless notebooks.

See Manage workspace base environments.

Note

This feature will roll out in workspaces enabled for the compliance security profile starting in late May 2026. The feature will be enabled by default.

Lakeflow Designer is now in Public Preview

April 22, 2026

You can now visually build data transformation workflows with a drag-and-drop canvas and natural language in Lakeflow Designer. See Lakeflow Designer. Available in Public Preview.

Language selector for AI-generated comments in Catalog Explorer

April 22, 2026

You can now change the default language for AI-generated comments in Catalog Explorer. Your selection is saved in your browser's local storage and applies to all subsequent AI-generated comment requests across all supported entity types. See Change the default language for AI-generated comments.

CPU_MEDIUM and CPU_LARGE workload types for Model Serving (Beta)

April 21, 2026

The CPU_MEDIUM and CPU_LARGE workload types for Model Serving are now in Beta. These workload types let you trade concurrency for more memory per worker on the same CPU hardware. Use them when your model needs more memory than the standard CPU workload type provides. See Compute type.

Databricks Data Classification is now GA

April 20, 2026

Databricks Data Classification is now generally available. Use Data Classification to automatically classify and tag sensitive data in Unity Catalog using an agentic AI system. See Data Classification.

Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (04/20)

April 20, 2026

New maintenance updates are available for supported Databricks Runtime versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements. For details, see:

Supervisor API for building agents (Beta)

April 20, 2026

The Supervisor API (Beta) lets you build agents in a single API call. Define your model, tools, and instructions, and Azure Databricks handles tool selection, execution, and response synthesis.

BI compatibility mode removed from Power BI connector

April 17, 2026

Microsoft has removed the BI compatibility mode option, which allows you to query Unity Catalog metric views in Power BI, from the Power BI Azure Databricks connector. Reports that use this connector option no longer function. To request restored support for Azure Databricks metric views in Power BI, vote and provide feedback on the Fabric Ideas community post. BI compatibility mode is still available for other BI tools. See Query metric views from BI tools.

Altering a catalog or schema's managed storage location is now GA

April 17, 2026

The ability to modify a catalog or schema's managed storage location is now generally available. The managed storage location is the default location in cloud storage used when new managed tables and volumes are created in Unity Catalog catalogs or schemas. See Specify a managed storage location in Unity Catalog.

Databricks Connector for Google Sheets is now generally available

April 16, 2026

The Databricks Connector for Google Sheets is now generally available. Use the connector to import and query Unity Catalog data, like Unity Catalog metric views. See Databricks Connector for Google Sheets.

Anthropic Claude Opus 4.7 now available as a Databricks-hosted model

April 16, 2026

Mosaic AI Model Serving now supports Anthropic Claude Opus 4.7 as a Databricks-hosted model.

To access this model, use:

ai_parse_document is now generally available

April 16, 2026

The ai_parse_document function is now generally available. This function parses structured content from unstructured documents including PDFs, images, Word documents, and PowerPoint files. Documents are limited to a maximum of 500 pages and 100 MB. See ai_parse_document function.

ai_parse_document will soon be available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled.

Compute log delivery to volumes is now GA

April 16, 2026

Delivering Spark driver, worker, and event logs from classic all-purpose and jobs compute to Unity Catalog volumes is now generally available. This is the recommended approach for log storage. See Compute log delivery.

Customer-managed keys now support model serving

April 16, 2026

You can now use customer-managed keys to encrypt model serving container images and model artifacts stored in Databricks managed registry. Endpoint artifacts created after April 16, 2026 are protected with customer-managed keys. See Customer-managed keys for encryption.

Query-based connectors for Lakeflow Connect (Public Preview)

April 15, 2026

Query-based connectors in Lakeflow Connect are now available in Public Preview. 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. Supported sources include Oracle, Teradata, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL, as well as all Lakehouse Federation data sources using foreign catalog ingestion. See Query-based connectors.

Sample Data Explorer is generally available

April 15, 2026

Sample Data Explorer with Genie Code is now generally available. Sample Data Explorer lets you ask questions about tables in Unity Catalog using natural language. Genie Code returns a response that includes an SQL query answering your question. See Explore sample data with Genie Code.

Updated UI navigation for Databricks Apps

April 15, 2026

The Databricks Apps console has a redesigned interface that provides a more intuitive app management experience. The updated console streamlines workflows for editing, deploying, and monitoring apps. You can also access Databricks Apps directly from the app switcher in the top right corner of your workspace. See Databricks Apps.

AI Gateway now governs MCP servers (Beta)

April 15, 2026

You can now use AI Gateway to enforce access control, monitor usage, and audit activity across all MCP interactions in your workspace. AI Gateway is the Azure Databricks central governance layer for LLM endpoints, coding agents, and MCP servers. See Unity AI Gateway.

Lakebase Autoscaling: Customer-managed keys

April 14, 2026

You can now manage encrypted Lakebase Autoscaling project data using a customer-managed key (CMK) from your own cloud KMS. This gives your organization full control over encryption and helps meet regulatory and compliance requirements. See Customer-managed keys for Lakebase.

Create and write to Unity Catalog tables from external Delta clients (Beta)

April 14, 2026

The Unity REST API now supports write and create access to Unity Catalog external and managed Delta tables from external Delta clients such as Apache Spark. External Delta tables support full read, write, and create operations. Creating and writing to Unity Catalog managed Delta tables is available in Beta and requires catalog-managed commits to be enabled. See Access Databricks tables from Delta clients.

Column-level SAP governance tags sync into Unity Catalog

April 13, 2026

Column-level personal data governance tags from SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) now sync into Unity Catalog, including fieldSemantics, isPotentiallyPersonal, and isPotentiallySensitive. Use these tags in attribute-based access control (ABAC) policies to govern access to sensitive columns. See SAP BDC semantic metadata.

Connect Lovable apps to Azure Databricks

April 13, 2026

You can now connect Lovable-hosted apps to your Azure Databricks workspace to query lakehouse data using the REST API and OAuth machine-to-machine authentication. See Connect Lovable to Databricks.

Vector Search retrieval quality (Beta)

April 13, 2026

Mosaic AI Vector Search provides built-in retrieval quality evaluation that measures and compares the relevance of different search strategies on your data. For more information, see Evaluate vector search retrieval quality.

SQL reference documentation for managing governed tags

April 13, 2026

The Azure Databricks SQL reference now includes documentation for five new SQL statements for managing governed tags: CREATE GOVERNED TAG, ALTER GOVERNED TAG, DROP GOVERNED TAG, DESCRIBE GOVERNED TAG, and SHOW GOVERNED TAGS.

For more information, see Create and manage governed tags.

New cascade field for deleting Unity Catalog pipelines (Beta)

April 9, 2026

A new cascade field is available in the Pipelines DELETE API for Unity Catalog pipelines. By default, cascade=true, which preserves the existing behavior of deleting all associated materialized views, streaming tables, and views when a pipeline is deleted. Set cascade=false to retain associated tables as inactive after deletion.

See Delete a pipeline.

Share foreign Iceberg tables with Delta Sharing (Public Preview)

April 9, 2026

You can now share foreign Iceberg tables federated from foreign Iceberg catalogs using Delta Sharing. Providers can add foreign Iceberg tables to a share, and recipients access the shared data in read-only format. See Add foreign Iceberg tables to a share.

C5, TISAX, and K-FSI compliance controls are now generally available

April 10, 2026

C5, TISAX, and K-FSI compliance controls are now generally available on Azure. These controls provide enhancements that help you meet compliance requirements for your workspace. See Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalog (C5), Trusted Information Security Assessment Exchange (TISAX), and Korean Financial Security Institute (K-FSI) compliance controls.

Databricks Runtime 18.2 and Databricks Runtime 18.2 ML are in Beta

April 8, 2026

Databricks Runtime 18.2 and Databricks Runtime 18.2 ML are now in Beta, powered by Apache Spark 4.1.0.

See Databricks Runtime 18.2 (Beta) and Databricks Runtime 18.2 for Machine Learning (Beta).

Scoped personal access tokens are now generally available

April 8, 2026

You can now scope personal access tokens (PATs) to specific API operations, restricting tokens to only the permissions you specify. For a complete list of available scopes, see API scopes. To learn more, see Authenticate with Azure Databricks personal access tokens (legacy).

Scoped personal access tokens are coming soon to workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled.

ai_prep_search (Beta)

April 8, 2026

ai_prep_search is now available in Beta. This SQL function transforms the structured output of ai_parse_document into search-ready chunks optimized for vector search and RAG pipelines. See ai_prep_search function.

Git-backed app deployments are now generally available

April 7, 2026

You can now deploy Databricks apps directly from Git repositories. Configure a Git reference, specify a source code path within a repository, and optionally enforce Git-only deployments across a workspace. See Deploy from a Git repository.

Databricks Marketplace listing creation wizard

April 6, 2026

The Marketplace provider console now features a step-by-step listing creation wizard that guides you through setting up general information, data assets, attributes, and details on separate pages. See Create a Marketplace listing.

Workspace skills for Genie Code are now available

April 6, 2026

Workspace skills for Genie Code Agent mode are now available. Workspace admins can create shared skills that are available to everyone in the workspace. Use workspace skills for broadly useful workflows across your team, such as machine learning pipelines or domain-specific processes. See Extend Genie Code with agent skills.

SAP semantic metadata syncs automatically into Unity Catalog

April 6, 2026

When you mount an SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) share to a catalog, semantic metadata (such as table and column comments, primary keys, foreign keys, and governance tags) syncs automatically into Unity Catalog. You can use SAP governance tags in ABAC policies to control access to sensitive data. See SAP BDC semantic metadata.

Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (04/02)

April 2, 2026

New maintenance updates are available for supported Databricks Runtime versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements. For details, see:

Governed tags are generally available

April 2, 2026

Governed tags are generally available. Governed tags allow administrators to define a controlled set of tags that can be applied to Unity Catalog objects and workspace objects, helping organizations enforce consistent metadata tagging for access control, data classification, and cost tracking. See Governed tags.

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