Integrating AI Into Apache Kafka Architectures: Patterns and Best Practices
Adding large language models (LLMs) and artificial intelligence (AI) to real-time event streams comes down to one thing: picking the right boundary between data transport and model compute. Where you run inference determines your system's resilience, latency, and cost. This article is for data engineers, streaming architects, and developers who want to add AI capabilities to their Apache Kafka event backbone without destabilizing production consumer groups or blowing through API rate limits.