How Wix's AI Agents Stay Ahead of the Rest | Life Is But A Stream

Real-time data and AI are converging—and companies that have already solved the data pipeline problem are pulling ahead fast. Wix processes over 40 billion interactions every day across hundreds of millions of websites, and the architecture behind that scale didn't happen by accident. It was built, lane by lane, around the principle that your upstream data must be at least as fast as your fastest use case. In this episode, Josef Goldstein, Head of R&D for the Big Data Platform at Wix.com, joins Joseph Morais to unpack how Wix evolved from a batch-based Hadoop architecture to a fully streaming-first platform on Confluent Cloud. The conversation covers Wix's multi-lane data architecture—from petabyte-scale data lakes to sub-second algorithmic decisions—how they approach data contracts and governance at distributed scale, and why Confluent Freight Clusters became a strategic unlock for cost and elasticity. Josef also explains how Wix is now wiring real-time stream processing directly into context layers for agentic AI systems. You'll Learn: How to architect a multi-lane data streaming system that serves use cases from sub-second ML inference to petabyte-scale analytics Why upstream data quality, governance, and metadata are the real prerequisites for production-grade agentic AI How Confluent Freight Clusters reduced costs and unlocked elastic scale for Wix's highest-volume, latency-tolerant data streams About the Guest: Josef Goldstein is an Israeli software engineer and engineering manager specializing in big data infrastructure and real-time analytics. With over 15 years of experience in developing data-intensive SaaS applications, Goldstein has built and led high-performing teams in the technology sector. Since 2021, he has served as the Head of R&D for Wix's Big Data and Analytics Platform, where he oversees the infrastructure and tools enabling data-driven decisions for the company's users and operations. Guest Highlight: "You understand that you need to be on the upstream side of the house as fast as your fastest lane. Otherwise, none of that is possible." Chapters: [00:00] Wix.com Overview and Customer Base [07:08] Segment 1: Data Streaming Goodness [24:24] Segment 2: Beyond the Stream [45:37] Segment 3: Quick Bytes [47:08] Joseph’s Top Takeaways Dive Deeper into Data Streaming: EP1— Unleashing Innovation With Data Streaming | Life Is But A Stream:    • Unleashing Innovation with Data Streaming ...   EP2— Continuous Stream Processing and Apache Flink® | Life Is But A Stream:    • Batch Processing vs. Real-Time Stream Proc...   Get Connected: Connect with Joseph: ‪@TheDataGiant‬ Joseph’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thedatagiant Josef’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/josefgoldstein Resources: Try Confluent Cloud: https://www.confluent.io/confluent-cl... Learn more at Confluent.io: confluent.io/life-is-but-a-stream-show/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=tm.content_life-is-but-a-stream-wix Our Sponsor: Your data shouldn’t be a problem to manage. It should be your superpower. The Confluent data streaming platform transforms organizations with trustworthy, real-time data that seamlessly spans your entire environment and powers innovation across every use case. Create smarter, deploy faster, and maximize efficiency with a true data streaming platform from the pioneers in data streaming. Learn more at confluent.io. ABOUT CONFLUENT Confluent is pioneering a fundamentally new category of data infrastructure focused on data in motion. Confluent’s cloud-native offering is the foundational platform for data in motion – designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can meet the new business imperative of delivering rich, digital front-end customer experiences and transitioning to sophisticated, real-time, software-driven backend operations. To learn more, please visit https://www.confluent.io/ #confluent #apachekafka #kafka