Hello Weaviate Community,

Welcome to the final Weaviate Newsletter of 2023 — what a year it’s been! In this edition we’re diving into the exciting new capabilities of Weaviate 1.23 as well as upcoming events, podcasts, and more to get you ready for an amazing new year.

Let's get into it!

Weaviate 1.23 is here!

Weaviate 1.23 is full of new capabilities including AutoPQ, Flat Indexing, Binary Quantization, OSS LLM support through Anyscale, and more! For more info, check out our release blog post here.

Vector data tips, tricks, and tech

How-to

• ✍️ Evaluating RAG Applications with RAGAs by Leonie Monigatti

  • A framework with metrics and LLM-generated data to evaluate the performance of your Retrieval-Augmented Generation pipeline

• ✍️ A Guide on 12 Tuning Strategies for Production-Ready RAG Applications by Leonie Monigatti

  • How to improve the performance of your Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline with these “hyperparameters” and tuning strategies

Upcoming events

Explore our brand new events hub to learn about upcoming opportunities to connect with Team Weaviate and our amazing community. Whether you’re looking for virtual events or in-person gatherings in your city, you can find them all here.

Webinars

How to build an AI-native foundation for enterprise apps

AI is in high demand, but how can you tell when your business is ready to take it on? When it’s time to incorporate AI into your workflows, building performant, secure and accurate applications can get complicated. Join Byron Voorbach from Weaviate and Travis Rehl from Innovative Solutions to explore what’s possible with AI apps and learn how to build the right foundation for fast, secure and scalable applications that delight your users.

Tuesday, January 9th, 2024: Event Details

Community events

• Google DevFest Zambia 2023 Join Daniel Phiri in an introduction to AI-enabled apps in JavaScript.

  • Dec 22nd: Event details

Online Weaviate Workshops

• Intro to Weaviate workshop

  In this introductory session, you will learn all about the advantages of vector databases, be guided through the process of creating a personalized vector database using Weaviate, and illustrate the practical application of Weaviate with real data.

  • Jan 4th: Event Details

  • Jan 10th: Event Details

  • Jan 17th: Event Details

Newest AI & data technology developments

Podcasts

• 🎙 Weaviate 1.23 Release Podcast with Etienne Dilocker - Weaviate Podcast #78

  • Connor Shorten and our CTO Etienne Dilocker discuss the latest and greatest from release 1.23 on the Weaviate Podcast. They discuss flat index with binary quantization, lazy shard loading, and our new integration with Anyscale!

AI-native databases mini series with Bob van Luijt

• 🎙 Self-Driving Databases with Andy Pavlo: AI-Native Databases #1

  • Andy Pavlo, Associate Professor at Carnegie Melon University, discusses the "Self-Driving Database", how to optimize databases, new opportunities with databases and large language models (LLMs), the subjective "opinion" of these models and much more!

• 🎙 Structure in Data with Paul Groth: AI-Native Databases #2

  • Paul Groth, Professor of Data Science at the University of Amsterdam, talks about representation inside models. What does a system look like that contains the weights and has full CRUD support to manipulate it? Will it remain within the current binary blob format, or will it be the next evolution of the vector database?

• 🎙 Humans and AI with John Maeda: AI-Native Databases #3

  • John Maeda, VP of AI and Design at Microsoft, discusses how humans experience AI and how we can help people create AI-native systems. Tune in to learn about the evolution of the Design in Tech report, 3 categories of design, and many others!

• 🎙 Subjectivity in AI with Dan Shipper: AI-Native Databases #4

  • Dan Schipper, Co-founder and CEO at Every, talks about his experience working with writers. He discusses the role of personality and subjectivity in AI and how people will interact with models to build new products and be creative.

💡 Did you know that Weaviate's podcast with Connor is not only available on YouTube, but you can also listen to it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts? Join us there for some great content! See you there!

Team updates

Join us and be part of the future of search

At Weaviate, we are committed to our values, which are the foundation of our company. They guide our decisions in better ways for our people, business, and future. If you share our passion for innovation and excellence, join our vibrant team as we're currently hiring for the role of Software Engineer (Distributed & Cloud).

Apply now! Let's build the future together! 🚀

Thank you for reading

Do you have any questions about Weaviate, vector databases, documentation, or other topics? Feel free to explore the Weaviate Forum, where you can engage in community conversations. Looking forward to your participation in 2024!

Happy new year!

Ieva