The State of Cloud Native: The Shift Towards AI by Katie Gamanji

Katie Gamanji explores the transformation of the cloud-native ecosystem as it shifts toward AI-native operations. In this keynote, she examines how the same infrastructure patterns and principles that made Kubernetes the foundation of modern application deployment are now becoming the operational backbone for AI workloads at scale. Katie walks through why AI infrastructure challenges increasingly resemble cloud-native problems, and how Kubernetes patterns are shaping the future of AI operations. She emphasizes the importance of openness, interoperability, and vendor neutrality as the cloud-native ecosystem becomes the blueprint for the next generation of AI systems. Throughout the talk, she highlights why the future of infrastructure and the operational reality of AI in production depends on the same collaborative, open-source community that has driven cloud-native innovation. If you work in Kubernetes, platform engineering, AI infrastructure, cloud-native operations, or developer platforms, this talk provides a strategic perspective on where the industry is headed and how cloud-native principles will continue to shape the AI era. Katie Gamanji (She/Her) is a Principal Engineer at Apple and a member of the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC). She previously built infrastructure for organizations like Conde Nast and American Express, led the CNCF End User Community, and led the creation of the KCNA (Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate) certification. She is also part of the OpenUK C-suite, is an active keynote speaker, and a #TechWomen100 winner. Recorded live at Kubernetes Community Days Texas on May 15, 2026, at the TCEA Conference Center in Austin, Texas. Kubernetes Community Days Texas is a community driven CNCF event focused on learning, collaboration, and open source connection across the cloud native ecosystem. Thank you to our sponsors for making this event possible: https://community2.cncf.io/events/det... Learn more about KCD Texas: https://kcdtexas.org Follow KCD Texas: @KCDTexas