Elevate Your Python AI Projects with MongoDB and Haystack

Taylor Pacelli
July 8, 2024

MongoDB is excited to announce an integration with Haystack, enhancing MongoDB Atlas Vector Search for Python developers. This integration amplifies our commitment to providing developers with cutting-edge tools for building AI applications centered around semantic search and Large Language Models (LLMs).

We’re excited to partner with MongoDB to help developers build top-tier LLM applications. The new Haystack and MongoDB Atlas integration lets developers seamlessly use MongoDB data in Haystack, a reliable framework for creating quality LLM pipelines for use cases like RAG, QA, and agentic pipelines. Whether you're an experienced developer or just starting, your gen AI projects can quickly progress from prototype to adoption, accelerating value for your business and end-users.
Malte Pietsch, co-founder and CTO, deepset

Simplifying AI app development with Haystack

Haystack is an open-source Python framework that simplifies AI application development. It enables developers to start their projects quickly, experiment with different AI models, and to efficiently scale their applications.

Indeed, Haystack is particularly effective for building applications requiring semantic understanding and natural language processing (NLP), such as chatbots and question-answering systems. Haystack’s core features include:

Components: Haystack breaks down complex NLP tasks into manageable components, such as document retrieval or text summarization. With the new MongoDB-Haystack integration, MongoDB becomes the place where all your data lives, ready for Haystack to use.
Pipelines: Haystack lets you link components together into pipelines for more complex tasks. With this integration, your MongoDB data flows through these pipelines.
Agents: Haystack Agents use LLMs to resolve complex queries. They can decide which tools (or components) to use for a given question, leveraging MongoDB data to deliver smarter answers.

Atlas Vector Search: Enhance AI development with Haystack

At the heart of the new integration is MongoDB Atlas Vector Search, transforming how applications search and retrieve data. By leveraging vector embeddings, Atlas Vector Search goes beyond mere keyword matching: it interprets the intent behind queries, enabling applications to provide highly relevant, context-aware responses. This is a breakthrough for Python developers who aim to build applications that think and understand like humans.

Building on this foundation, the Atlas Vector Search and Haystack integration gives Python developers a powerful toolkit for navigating the complexities of AI application development. MongoDB becomes a dynamic document store within Haystack's framework, optimizing data storage, processing, and retrieval.

Additionally, the integration eases the use of advanced AI models from leading providers such as OpenAI and Cohere into your applications. Developers can thus create applications that do more than just answer queries—they grasp and act on the underlying intent, ensuring responses are both accurate and contextually relevant.

What this means for Python developers

For Python developers, this integration means:

Faster development: Developers can focus on building and innovating rather than spending time configuring and managing infrastructure. MongoDB's integration with Haystack means you can get up and running quickly, leveraging the best of both technologies to accelerate your development cycles.
Smarter applications: By utilizing Haystack's powerful Natural Language Processing tooling in combination with MongoDB Atlas Vector Search’s efficient data handling, developers can create applications that understand and process natural language more effectively. This results in applications that can provide more accurate and contextually relevant responses that resonate with user intent.
Access to pre-trained AI models: With seamless integration of leading generative AI models from providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Hugging Face, and AWS Bedrock, Python developers can easily incorporate advanced AI functionalities into their projects. This means developers can quickly adopt state-of-the-art models without the need for extensive training or fine-tuning, saving time and resources.
Flexible and scalable pipelines: Haystack's modular approach to building AI applications, through its use of components and pipelines, allows developers to create flexible and scalable solutions. With MongoDB data seamlessly flowing through these pipelines, you can easily adapt and expand your applications to meet growing demands and new challenges.
Robust search capabilities: Atlas Vector Search transforms the way applications retrieve and interpret data, going beyond simple keyword searches. It enables applications to perform high-precision searches that return more relevant and semantically rich results. This advanced search capability is crucial for developing applications that require high levels of semantic understanding and accuracy.

By integrating MongoDB with Haystack, Python developers are equipped with a powerful toolkit that not only simplifies the AI development process but also significantly enhances the intelligence and functionality of their applications. Whether you are building chatbots, search engines, or other AI-driven applications, this integration provides the tools you need to create innovative and impactful solutions.

Get started now

Start leveraging the MongoDB and Haystack integration for your AI development. Explore our tutorial, documentation, or check out our github repository to begin building smarter, more intuitive Python projects today!

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Nokia Corteca Scales Wi-Fi Connectivity to Millions of Devices With MongoDB Atlas

Nokia’s home Wi-Fi connectivity cloud platform was launched in 2019 as the Nokia WiFi Cloud Controller (NWCC). In 2023, it was renamed and relaunched as the Corteca Home Controller, becoming part of the Corteca software suite that delivers smarter broadband for a better experience. The Corteca Home Controller can be hosted on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure, and is the industry’s first platform to support three management services—device management, Wi-Fi management, and application management. Supporting TR-369 (a standardized remote device management protocol) also allows the Home Controller to work in a multi-vendor environment, managing both Nokia broadband devices and third-party broadband devices. By solving connectivity issues before the end-user detects them, and by automatically optimizing Wi-Fi performance, the Home Controller helps deliver excellent customer experiences to millions of users, 24/7. During the five years that Nokia Corteca has been a MongoDB Atlas customer, the Home Controller has successfully scaled from 500,000 devices to over 4.5 million. There are now 75 telecommunications customers of Home Controller spread across all regions of the globe. Having the stability, efficiency, and performance to scale Nokia Corteca's solution is end-to-end, from applications embedded in the device, through the home, and into the cloud. Algorithms assess data extracted from home networks, based on which performance parameters automatically adjust as needed—changing Wi-Fi channels to avoid network interference, for example—thereby ensuring zero downtime. The Home Controller processes real-time data sent from millions of devices, generating massive volumes of data. With a cloud optimization team tasked with deploying the solution across the globe to ever more customers, the Home Controller needed to store and manage its vast dataset and to onboard new telecommunication organizations more easily without incurring any downtime. Prior to Nokia Corteca moving to MongoDB Atlas, its legacy relational database lacked stability and required both admin and application teams to manage operations. A flexible model with time series capabilities That's where MongoDB Atlas came in. Nokia was familiar with the MongoDB Atlas database platform, having already worked with it as part of a previous company acquisition and solution integration. As Nokia's development team had direct experience with the scalability, manageability, and ease of use offered by MongoDB Atlas, they knew it had the potential to address the Home Controller’s technical and business requirements. There was another key element: Nokia wanted to store time-series data—a sequence of data points in which insights are gained by analyzing changes over time. MongoDB Atlas has the unique ability to store operational and time series data in parallel and provides robust querying capabilities on that data. Other advantages include MongoDB's flexible schema, which helps developers store data to match the application's needs and adapt as data changes over time. MongoDB Atlas also provides features such as Performance Advisor that monitors the performance of the database and makes intelligent recommendations to optimize and improve the performance and resource consumption Fast real time data browsing and scalability made easy Previously, scaling the database had been time-consuming and manual. With MongoDB Atlas, the team can easily scale up as demand increases with very little effort and no downtime. This also means it is much more straightforward to add new clients, such as large telecommunications companies. Having started with 100GB of data, the team now has more than 1.3 terabytes, and can increase the disc space in a fraction of a second, positioning the team to be able to scale with the business. As the Home Controller grows and onboards more telcos, the team anticipates a strengthening relationship with MongoDB. “We have a very good relationship with the MongoDB team,” said Jaisankar Gunasekaran, Head of Cloud Hosting and Operations at Nokia. “One of the main advantages is their local presence—they’re accessible, they’re friendly, and they’re experts. It makes our lives easier and lets us concentrate on our products and solutions.” To learn more about how MongoDB can help drive innovation and capture customer imaginations, check out our MongoDB for Telecommunications page.

July 2, 2024

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The Converged AI and Application Datastore for Insurance

In the inherently information-driven insurance industry, companies ingest, analyze, and process massive amounts of data, requiring extensive decision-making. To manage this, they rely on a myriad of technologies and IT support staff to keep operations running smoothly but often lack effectiveness due to their outdated nature. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds great promise for insurers by streamlining processes, enhancing decision-making, and improving customer experiences with significantly less time, resources, and staff compared with traditional IT systems. The convergence of AI and innovative application datastores is transforming how insurers work with data. In this post, we’ll look at how these elements are reshaping the insurance industry and offering greater potential for AI-powered applications, with MongoDB at the heart of the converged AI and application datastore. Scenario planning and flexible data layers One of the primary concerns for IT leaders and decision-makers in the insurance industry is making smart technology investments. The goal is to consolidate existing technology portfolios, which often include a variety of systems like SQL Server, Oracle, and IBM IMS. Consolidation helps reduce inventory and prepare for the future. But what does future-proofing really look like? Scenario planning is an effective strategy for future-proofing. This involves imagining different plausible futures and investing in the common elements that remain beneficial across all scenarios. For insurance companies, a crucial common thread is the data layer. By making data easier to work with, companies can ensure that their technology investments remain valuable regardless of how future scenarios unfold. MongoDB’s flexible developer data platform offers a distinct architectural advantage by making data easier to work with, regardless of the cloud vendor or AI application in use. This flexibility is vital for preparing for disruptive future scenarios, whether they involve regulatory changes, market shifts, or technological advancements. Watch now: The Converged AI and Application Datastore: How API's, AI & Data are Reshaping Insurance The role of AI and data in insurance Generative AI is revolutionizing the insurance sector, offering new ways to manage and utilize data. According to Celent's 2023 Technology Insight and Strategy Survey, 33% of companies across different industries have AI projects in planning, 29% in development, and 19% in production (shown in Figure 1 below). This indicates a significant shift towards AI-driven solutions by insurers actively experimenting with gen AI. Figure 1: Celent Technology Insight and Strategy Survey 2023 However, there's tension between maintaining existing enterprise systems and innovating with AI. Insurance companies must balance keeping the lights on with investing in AI to meet the expectations of boards and stakeholders. The solution lies in integrating AI in a way that enhances operational efficiency without overwhelming existing systems. However, data challenges need to be addressed to achieve this, specifically around access to data. According to a Workday Global Survey , only 4% of respondents said their data is fully accessible, and 59% say their enterprise data is somewhat or completely siloed. Without a solid data foundation, insurers will struggle to achieve the benefits they are looking for from AI. Data architectures and unstructured data When adopting advanced technologies like AI and ML, which require data as the foundation, organizations often grapple with the challenge of integrating these innovations into legacy systems due to their inflexibility and resistance to modification. A robust data architecture is essential for future-proofing and consolidating technology investments. Insurance companies often deal with a vast amount of unstructured data, such as claim images and videos, which can be challenging to manage. By leveraging AI, specifically through vector search and large language models, companies can efficiently process and analyze this data. MongoDB is ideal for managing unstructured data due to its flexible, JSON-like document model, which accommodates a wide variety of data types and structures without requiring a predefined schema. Additionally, MongoDB’s flexibility enables insurers to integrate seamlessly with various technologies, making it a versatile and powerful solution for unstructured data management. For example, consider an insurance adjuster assessing damage from claim photos. Traditionally, this would require manually reviewing each image. With AI, the photos can be converted into vector embeddings and matched against a database of similar claims, drastically speeding up the process. This not only improves efficiency but also enhances the accuracy of assessments. The converged AI and application datastore with MongoDB Building a single view of data across various systems is a game-changer for the insurance industry. Data warehouses and data lakes have long provided single views of customer and claim data, but they often rely on historical data, which may be outdated. The next step is integrating real-time data with these views to make them more dynamic and actionable. A versatile database platform plays a crucial role in this integration. By consolidating data into a single, easily accessible view, insurance companies can ensure that various personas, from underwriters to data scientists, can interact with the data effectively. This integration allows for more responsive and informed decision-making, which is crucial for staying competitive in a rapidly evolving market. This can be achieved with a converged AI and application datastore, as shown in Figure 2 below. This is where operational data, analytics insights, and unstructured data become operationally ready for the applications that leverage AI. Figure 2: Converged AI and application datastore reference architecture The convergence of AI, data, and application datastores is reshaping the insurance industry. By making smart technology investments, leveraging AI to manage unstructured data, and building robust data architectures, insurance companies can future-proof their operations and embrace innovation. A versatile and flexible data platform provides the foundation for these advancements, enabling companies to make their data more accessible, actionable, and valuable. The MongoDB Atlas developer data platform puts powerful AI and analytics capabilities directly in the hands of developers and offers the capabilities to enrich applications by consolidating, ingesting, and acting on any data type instantly. Because MongoDB serves as the operational data store (ODS)—with its flexible document model—insurers can efficiently handle large volumes of data in real-time. By integrating MongoDB with AI/ML platforms, insurers can develop models trained on the most accurate and up-to-date data, thereby addressing the critical need for adaptability and agility in the face of evolving technologies. With built-in security controls across all data, whether managed in a customer environment or through MongoDB Atlas, a fully managed cloud service, MongoDB ensures robust security with features such as authentication (single sign-on and multi-factor authentication), role-based access controls, and comprehensive data encryption. These security measures act as a safeguard for sensitive data, mitigating the risk of unauthorized access from external parties and providing organizations with the confidence to embrace AI and ML technologies. If you would like to learn more about the convergence of AI and application datastores, visit the following resources: Video: The Converged AI and Application Datastore: How API's, AI & Data are Reshaping Insurance Paper: Innovation in Insurance with Artificial Intelligence The MongoDB Solutions Library is curated with tailored solutions to help developers kick-start their projects

July 18, 2024