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March 2026

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

Note

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

New Lakebase instances are created as Autoscaling projects by default

March 12, 2026

New Lakebase instances are now created as Lakebase Autoscaling projects by default. Lakebase Autoscaling is the latest version of Lakebase, with autoscaling compute, scale-to-zero, branching, and instant restore. This default behavior applies when you create new instances using the UI, Database instance API, Terraform, or SDKs. Existing Provisioned instances are unchanged and keep their current connection strings and behavior. To learn more, see Autoscaling by default.

Databricks Runtime 18.1 is now GA

March 11, 2026

Databricks Runtime 18.1 is now generally available. See Databricks Runtime 18.1 and Databricks Runtime 18.1 for Machine Learning.

Databricks Assistant is now Genie Code

March 11, 2026

Databricks Assistant is now Genie Code, with expanded agentic capabilities for autonomous, multi-step data tasks. Genie Code Agent mode is now generally available for data science, data engineering, and dashboard authoring. See Genie Code.

Databricks SQL pipelines support notifications and performance mode (Beta)

March 11, 2026

Materialized views and streaming tables defined and scheduled in Databricks SQL now support failure notifications and serverless performance mode configuration in Beta.

See Schedule refreshes in Databricks SQL.

Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (03/10)

March 10, 2026

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

Workday HCM connector (Beta)

March 9, 2026

The managed Workday HCM connector in Lakeflow Connect is now available in Beta. Use this connector to ingest data from Workday Human Capital Management into Azure Databricks. See Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) connector.

BI compatibility mode for metric views in Power BI (Beta)

March 9, 2026

BI compatibility mode for metric views in Power BI is now available in Beta. You can query Azure Databricks metric views in Power BI using standard SQL aggregation functions by enabling BI compatibility mode when creating a connection. It automatically rewrites aggregate functions to use the correct measure definitions. See Query metric views in Power BI.

New resources for Databricks Apps

March 9, 2026

You can now add other Databricks apps and Unity Catalog tables as resources for your Databricks app. App resources enable app-to-app communication, and table resources provide governed access to structured data. See Add a Databricks app resource to a Databricks app and Add a Unity Catalog table resource to a Databricks app.

Multi-table transactions are now in Public Preview

March 9, 2026

You can now group multiple SQL statements across multiple tables into a single atomic transaction using BEGIN ATOMIC ... END; syntax. All changes succeed together or roll back together, ensuring data consistency across your operations. Multi-table transactions require catalog-managed commits enabled on participating tables and are supported on Unity Catalog managed Delta tables.

See Transactions.

Databricks Apps compute sizing support for compliance security profile standards

March 9, 2026

Compute sizing for Databricks Apps now supports all compliance security profile standards supported by Databricks and is available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled.

For a full list of supported compliance standards, see Compliance security profile.

March 9, 2026

Inbound Private Link for performance-intensive services such as Zerobus Ingest and Lakebase Autoscaling is now in Public Preview. See Configure inbound Private Link for performance-intensive services.

Google Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite now available as a Databricks-hosted model

March 6, 2026

Mosaic AI Model Serving now supports Google Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite as a Databricks-hosted model.

To access this model, use:

Serverless compute now available for IRAP and Canada Protected B workloads on Azure Databricks

March 6, 2026

You can now use serverless compute for IRAP and Canada Protected B workloads. You must select environment version 5 for serverless to start with these compliance security profiles enabled. See Classic and serverless compute support by region.

Endpoint telemetry for custom model serving endpoints (Beta)

March 6, 2026

You can now configure endpoint telemetry to persist logs, traces, and metrics from custom model serving endpoints into Unity Catalog Delta tables using OpenTelemetry. This enables root cause analysis, application health monitoring, and compliance retention using standard SQL queries.

See Persist custom model serving data to Unity Catalog.

Databricks Apps telemetry (Beta)

March 6, 2026

You can now configure telemetry for your Databricks apps to collect traces, logs, and metrics and persist them to Unity Catalog tables using the OpenTelemetry (OTel) protocol. After you enable app telemetry, Databricks automatically captures system logs and usage events.

See Configure telemetry for Databricks Apps.

Tree view of the workspace browser side panel (Public Preview)

March 5, 2026

The workspace browser side panel now includes a tree view that provides a flexible, tree-based view of your workspace folder hierarchy. The tree view allows you to expand descendant folders, change the root of the tree, and navigate your workspace while keeping the tree steady. This improves the multi-asset authoring experience by providing better control over workspace navigation.

See Tree view of the workspace browser side panel (Public Preview).

Lakebase Autoscaling now available with compliance security profile

March 4, 2026

Lakebase Autoscaling is now available for workspaces with the compliance security profile when the compliance standard is set to HIPAA, C5, TISAX, or None.

See Lakebase Autoscaling limitations.

Agent Bricks: Supervisor Agent is now available in additional regions

March 3, 2026

Agent Bricks: Supervisor Agent is now available in additional regions. For the full list of supported regions, see Features with limited regional availability.

Agent Bricks: Knowledge Assistant is now available by default for Enhanced Security and Compliance customers

March 3, 2026

Agent Bricks: Knowledge Assistant is now available by default for workspaces with the compliance security profile enabled and HIPAA controls selected.

Use Agent Bricks: Knowledge Assistant to create a chatbot that can answer questions about your documents and provide high-quality responses with citations.

See Use Agent Bricks: Knowledge Assistant to create a high-quality chatbot over your documents.

Managed OAuth flows for external MCP servers

March 2, 2026

Databricks now provides managed OAuth flows for select external MCP servers, eliminating the need to register your own OAuth app or manage credentials. Supported providers include Glean MCP, GitHub MCP, Google Drive API, and SharePoint API.

See Install an external MCP server.

Notebook tagging (Public Preview)

March 2, 2026

You can now apply tags to notebooks to organize and categorize them for easier management. Notebooks also support governed tags, including certification and deprecation system tags, to indicate trust levels or lifecycle status directly within the notebook interface. See Apply tags to notebooks.

Customer-managed keys for Unity Catalog

March 2, 2026

You can now protect data in Unity Catalog catalogs with your own encryption keys using customer-managed keys (CMK). See Customer-managed keys for Unity Catalog.

Lakebase Autoscaling now includes high availability

March 2, 2026

Lakebase Autoscaling now includes high availability. High availability provides automatic failover from your primary compute instance to secondary compute instances distributed across availability zones, with no connection string changes required.

See High availability.

Lakebase is now generally available on Azure

March 2, 2026

Lakebase is now generally available on Azure. It is the latest version of Lakebase with autoscaling compute, scale-to-zero, branching, and instant restore. The GA release extends region support to 11 new Azure regions in addition to the existing eastus2, westeurope, and westus regions.

New regions:

  • australiaeast (Australia East)
  • brazilsouth (Brazil South)
  • canadacentral (Canada Central)
  • centralindia (Central India)
  • southcentralus (South Central US)
  • southeastasia (Southeast Asia)
  • eastus (East US)
  • centralus (Central US)
  • northeurope (North Europe)
  • uksouth (UK South)
  • westus2 (West US 2)

See Get started with Lakebase Autoscaling.

Schedule data refreshes in Google Sheets (Public Preview)

March 2, 2026

You can now schedule automatic data refreshes in the Databricks Connector for Google Sheets on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. See Schedule data refreshes in Google Sheets.

Connect to Azure Databricks from Microsoft Excel (Public Preview)

March 2, 2026

The new Azure Databricks Excel Add-in is in Public Preview and allows you to connect Microsoft Excel to your workspace, import data from tables or Metric Views, execute SQL queries, and analyze data directly in Excel. See Connect to Azure Databricks from Microsoft Excel.

Update workspace network configuration to VNet injection is now GA

March 2, 2026

You can now update the virtual network (VNet) configuration of an existing Azure Databricks workspace to migrate from a Azure Databricks-managed VNet to your own VNet (VNet injection). This feature is now generally available. See Update workspace network configuration.

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