Author: Philip Godfrey
Unveiled at Oracle AI World in Las Vegas, Oracle AI Database 26ai, the next-generation long-term support release of its flagship database, architects AI at the core of the database.
With this release, Oracle advances its “AI for Data” vision by architecting AI and data together to provide trusted insight, innovation and productivity across both operational systems and analytic data lakes.
What is Oracle AI Database 26ai?
Oracle AI Database 26ai is a long-term support release that replaces Oracle Database 23ai.
It enables AI across the entire data and development stack, making for faster development, tighter integration, and endless possibilities. including AI Vector Search, AI for Database Management, AI for Data Development, AI for Application Development, and AI for Analytics.
You even see this dedication to AI in the renaming, a further nod to its Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Oracle Database 23ai -> Oracle AI Database 26ai
We enable our customers to easily deliver trusted AI insights, innovations, and productivity for all their data, everywhere, including both operational systems and analytic data lakes.¹
Oracle Database 23ai established the foundation; 26ai consolidates and elevates it into a cohesive, AI-native platform for production workloads at scale.²
What key features³ enable AI developers within AI Database 26ai?
Below are just selected highlights focused on developers. However, all these enhancements are on top of what was delivered in Oracle Database 23ai.
Private AI Services
Container
Prebuilt environment for running private instances of AI Models (embedding, open-weight LLMs) to avoid sharing data with third-party AI providers.
Enhanced AI Vector Search
Oracle AI Vector Search is designed for AI workloads, allowing developers to query data based on semantics, rather than keywords.
Unified Data Model
Unified data models for relational, JSON and graph data simplified. Accelerating developer productivity to access data.
Enhanced AI Vector Search
AI Vector Search enables unstructured data (such as documents, videos, and images) to be quickly searched, using a new data representation called vectors.
Users can now combine business data and vectors to answer user queries without moving or synchronizing data or managing multiple products.
The key advantage of having AI Vector Search built into the Oracle Database is that every mission-critical feature of Oracle Database works transparently with AI vectors.
You automatically get all the industrial-strength scalability, consistency, availability, security, and performance you have come to rely on with Oracle Database. Because of this, you can safely use AI Vector Search in the same customer-facing applications that you use Oracle Database for today.⁴
Unified Data Model
The relational, JSON, and graph data models have been unified, providing massive simplification. This accelerates developer productivity by enabling applications to access the same data in relational format via SQL, as a JSON document, or as a graph.
Great AI needs great data. With Oracle AI Database 26ai, customers get both. It’s the single place where their business data lives—current, consistent, and secure. And it’s the best place to use AI on that data without moving it.
With more developments planned and the integration of AI within the database, we really are at a moment in time where rapid development and problem solving with AI has gone from aspirational to achievable, all with the help of 26ai.
How do customers access 26ai?
Customers can simply apply the October 2025 release update to go from 23ai to 26ai. You will receive the immediately available features and as this is a long-term support release, it’s ready for production workloads.
There is no database upgrade or application re-certification required and advanced AI features, such as AI Vector Search, are included at no additional charge.⁵
Interested to know more?
We’d be more than happy to discuss your requirements or questions, please get in touch here.
[2] https://blogs.oracle.com/database/post/oracle-announces-oracle-ai-database-26ai
[3] https://www.oracle.com/uk/database/features/#foundational-ai
[4] oracle-ai-database-26ai-new-features-guide.pdf
[5] https://blogs.oracle.com/database/post/oracle-announces-oracle-ai-database-26ai
Contact us today to arrange an assessment or email:
Philip Godfrey
Principal Data Analytics & AI Consultant at Vertice
